Explore Essays and memoir
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Best Book of 1886: The Masterpiece
Summer Brennan
‘Zola’s characters are, in every sense of the term, art monsters.’
Best Book of 1959: Mrs Bridge
Sindya Bhanoo
‘When the book was published, my own parents were children in India, then a newly independent nation.’
Best Book of 1946: The Years of Anger
Robert Chandler
Robert Chandler on why The Years of Anger by Randall Swingler is the best book of 1946.
On Diane di Prima
Iris Cushing
‘Sex flowed into art, art flowed into livelihood, livelihood flowed into poetry, poetry flowed into friendship, friendship flowed into sex. The entirety of this life was sacred.’
Garden Time: The Palm Forest of W.S. Merwin
Robert Becker
‘This place, where the temperature drops noticeably as you walk into it from the road, survived William Stanley Merwin as equal parts oasis, stage set and work of art.’
The Possibility of an Emperor
Patrick Barkham
‘I had always been told that the purple emperor was rare because old woods were rare.’
Cheating
Ahmet Altan
‘I get into the police car with four officers from the Anti-Terrorism Branch. They are taking me to the prison.’
Inferno
Catherine Cho
‘My son was eight days shy of his 100-day celebration when I started to see devils in his eyes.’
Catherine Cho’s Inferno is shortlisted for the 2020 Young Writer of the Year Award.
The Death of Distance
Samrat Choudhury
‘It might take only one soldier being shot across the Chinese–Indian border for war to begin. The howitzers, tanks, missiles and fighter jets are lined up, ready and waiting for action.’
The Only Way Out Is Through
Hana Pera Aoake
‘Hiding in kumara pits on the side of volcanoes, I was born with an egg inside me ready to be baked.’
Cooking from Memory
Barclay Bram
Barclay Bram reports from Chengdu – on the attention to detail in Sichuanese cooking.
Notes on Craft
Amina Cain
‘I would rather work in front of, or behind, a story. I want to leave a chain of images that remain in the reader’s mind.’
