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Explore Essays and memoir

A.L. Kennedy | First Sentence

A.L. Kennedy

‘I have never seen anyone eat figs in the street and feel I am unsurprised.’

Stalkers

Hari Kunzru

‘Writer: How do we get back? Stalker: Here, nobody returns.’

Yiyun Li | First Sentence

Yiyun Li

‘But for her, and perhaps for many, the solidity of an invented life is not trustworthy.’

Ange Mlinko | First Sentence

Ange Mlinko

‘I rediscovered the efficacy of meter (or the ‘contrast between fixity and flux’) when I was stuck in a shark tunnel with my kids and was afraid I was coming down with a panic attack.’

Chupa Globo (Globo Sucks)

Sophie Lewis

‘Carnival by stealth: ticketless, leaderless and limitless, a surge of feeling independent of schools, parties, king or queen; a true subversion of the status quo.’

Tao Lin | On Tour

Tao Lin

‘The editor of the Oregonian’s books section (Powell’s employees later confirmed to me that it was him, but they could be wrong) attended, I think, and asked in what sounded to me like an accusatory, non-curious voice if I was on drugs.’

Notes from Uzbekistan

Chinelo Okparanta

‘The cultural presentations of the students – that juxtaposition of old and new world, of tradition and modernity.’

The Perfect Last Days of Mr Sengupta

Siddartha Mukherjee

‘The point of lucid death,’ he said, ‘is to retain the consciousness of dying, while blunting the agony of it.’

Underland

Robert Macfarlane

‘There are many ways to die underground.’

A Walk to Kobe

Haruki Murakami

‘What I’m talking about is a different sea, and different mountains.’ Haruki Murakami walks to his hometown after the Great Hanshin earthquake of 1995.

Remembering Iain M Banks

Stuart Kelly

Stuart Kelly remembers Iain Banks, and assesses the influence he's had on this generation of writers.

Helen Oyeyemi | My Writing Playlist

Helen Oyeyemi

Helen Oyeyemi on what she listens to while writing and editing.

Rooms That Have Had Their Part

Joanna Kavenna

‘Rooms jaundiced by bad lighting, so you wondered, what is ague, and could we have it? Rooms that hummed, a hum you couldn’t quite identify, or that seemed in the end to come from your own head.’

Leagues Away

Benjamin Markovits

‘A year passed before I could pick up a ball again with pleasure.’