Explore essays and memoir
On Europe | Peter Stamm
Peter Stamm
Peter Stamm on the Swiss referendum to join the EU. Translated from the German by Michael Hofmann.
A Language of Figs
Sema Kaygusuz
Sema Kaygusuz on the inheritances of genocide and historical memory, and what her own grandmother, a survivor of the Dersim Massacre in Turkey, taught her about life and language.
Introduction
Sigrid Rausing
‘Somewhere in-between is the truth. Somewhere in-between is the story, or at least the European story.’
Maly Trostinets
Joseph Leo Koerner
‘It was also mainly Viennese Jews who, between 6 May and 10 October 1942, were murdered in Maly Trostinets. Tens of thousands of Jews from elsewhere died there too, together with Soviet soldiers, Belarusian citizens, both Jewish and Christian, and partisans.’
Our Home Is Mortal Too
Katherine Angel
Katherine Angel on Stromae and Royal Museum for Central Africa in Belgium.
Refuge
Bruno Fert & Nam Le
‘This series showcases a more intimate kind of human absence.’ Nam Le introduces the photographs of Bruno Fert.
Alicja Gescinska | On Europe
Alicja Gescinska
‘Europe has proved to be at its best when it embraced unity in diversity.’
We Do Not Know Each Other
Lara Feigel
‘Is that what family is for? Helping you to understand what formed you?’
Ludmila Ulitskaya | On Europe
Ludmila Ulitskaya
‘It seems clear to me that during the past ten years, Russia has reached the apex of its estrangement from Europe.’ Translated from the Russian by Polly Gannon.
On Being French and Chinese
Tash Aw
‘We were trapped in a sort of double prison: by poverty in Europe, and by China and its expectations of us.’
Marie Darrieussecq | On Europe
Marie Darrieussecq
‘There is a Europe of life and a Europe of death, on the mass graves of which we perpetuate a dream.’ Translated from the French by Linda Coverdale.
Itinerant
Andrew Miller
‘Was this an adventure or was I in trouble? At what point did one begin to shade into the other?’
Michael Hofmann | On Europe
Michael Hofmann
‘For all its flimsiness, the cage takes itself terribly seriously, restricting access, glorying in the name of Fatherland.’
The Poetics of Trauma
Ulf Karl Olov Nilsson
Swedish poet and psychoanalyst Ulf Karl Olov Nilsson on trauma, silence and linguistic analysis of asylum seekers. Translated from the Swedish by Peter Graves.
Binidittu
Nicola Lo Calzo & Daisy Lafarge
‘It’s perhaps a truism that acts of devotion both make and unmake the devotional object.’ Daisy Lafarge introduces the photographs of Nicola Lo Calzo.
Orhan Pamuk | On Europe
Orhan Pamuk
‘In the part of the world where I come from, Europe is not just an ideal and a beautiful dream’ Translated from the Turkish by Ekin Oklap.
Six Kilometres
Adam Weymouth
‘Migration will not stop: if there is a single lesson to be taken home from Lesbos it is that.’
Jacqueline Rose | On Europe
Jacqueline Rose
‘We will get nowhere in understanding the present crisis unless we, as Europeans, are willing to look into the dark heart of ourselves.’
Romesh Gunesekera | On Europe
Romesh Gunesekera
‘Identity, it seemed, was not so self-determined after all.’
My Chequered Europe
Melitta Breznik
‘A Europe of different languages, landscapes and cultures, all of which have retained their characters.’ Translated from the German by Charlotte Collins.
Srećko Horvat | On Europe
Srećko Horvat
‘We are the ones who are responsible for not repeating the mistakes of the past.’
Laurent Gaudé | On Europe
Laurent Gaudé
‘Fervent social awareness and civic passion have deserted today’s Europe.’ Translated from the French by Alison Anderson.
Exile
Elif Shafak
‘The first time I heard the word exile – sürgün – in Turkish, I was a child. It struck me how closely it rhymed with another word: hüzün – melancholy.’
On the Island of the Black River
William Atkins
William Atkins visits the remote island of Sakhalin, following in the footsteps of Anton Chekhov.
Stasiland
Anna Funder
‘The Berlin Wall ran a couple of kilometres from here and there was no getting over it.’ An extract from Anna Funder’s Stasiland, winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction.
[The Delicate Architecture of the Withdrawal Agreement]
Kevin Breathnach
‘I, the pulse. I, the task. I, the ions of the documents extant. I, I, I as in, irrealidad, ingles, intruido.’
Connecting Worlds, Inventing Worlds
José Eduardo Agualusa & Daniel Hahn
José Eduardo Agualusa and Daniel Hahn on translating and being translated. ‘As a humble, invisible translator, I let him get the last word.’
Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones
Edoardo Albert
Edoardo Albert on five archaeological findings that brought the past to life.
On Tastelessness
Adam O’Fallon Price
‘Write through your first ending is advice I give, again and again.’
Lauren Aimee Curtis | Notes on Craft
Lauren Aimee Curtis
‘I think that if we knew, really understood, the reasons why certain stories take hold of us, we would have no need for fiction at all.’ Lauren Aimee Curtis shares her notes on the craft of writing.
