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Explore Essays and memoir

1911, The Other Revolution

Isabel Hilton

‘Anniversaries, of course, can be a two-edged sword: they invite historical reappraisal.’

1979

Aminatta Forna

‘What happened in 1979 has happened many times before and many times since, in places where people have set themselves free and believed with all their hearts that the freedom they had fought for was real and lasting, only to be recaptured.’

(nostalgia)

Juliet Jacques

‘I ended up piecing my life together through other people.’

A Brief Guide to Gender in India

Minal Hajratwala

‘Please be creative. This is only the beginning.’

A Colossal Hoard

Ian Hamilton

‘For James Boswell, admiration was a busy, intimate affair.’

A Dynasty of Album Cover Art

Lemi Ghariokwu

‘The music is as powerful as it gets and beneath his knife-edge, cutting sarcasm, Fela’s voice rages.’

A Fight in Bethnal Green

Jeremy Harding

‘There was no sizing up, no graceful footwork, none of the rhetoric of the game: this was unmitigated invective.’

A Ghost Story

Rick Gekoski

‘It drives me crazy when I can’t make it stop.’

A Hand Made Art

Per Gedin

‘This new kind of ‘planned’ best-seller invariably influences every other form of book production, most notably that of the book selling.’

A Hand Reached Down to Guide Me

David Gates

‘It took longer and longer for the next one to come, and then there wasn’t a next one.’

A Journey into Afghanistan

Peregrine Hodson

‘We had been travelling for a week, and had reached the territory of the Hesb Nasr: a rival group of mujahedin who were notorious for ambushing travellers, stealing their weapons and skinning their victims.’

A letter from Kazuo Ishiguro

Kazuo Ishiguro

The letter that accompanied Ishiguro’s first submission to Granta.

A Life in Clothes

Ruth Gershon

‘The children of ruling families are born in the purple’.

A Mingling | State of Mind

Siri Hustvedt

‘My empathy may become a vehicle of insight for me and therefore help me to help you or it may debilitate me altogether, make me so sad I am no good to you whatsoever.’