Explore Essays and memoir
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Seven Days in Syria
Janine di Giovanni
‘I had come to Syria because I wanted to see a country before it tumbled down the rabbit hole of war’
Mess
Romesh Gunesekera
‘You have to go on the offensive until you smell victory. Then you have the aphrodisiac and can go full tilt.’
Xiaolu Guo | My Writing Playlist
Xiaolu Guo
‘The challenge of flowing in one continuous outpouring of language in a novel is my killer.’
Selvy After the War
Frances Harrison
‘She exudes happiness. Somewhere along the line she understood that this was the best way to defeat the men who tortured her.’
Flowers Appear on the Earth
Samantha Harvey
‘In their deepest sorrow the islanders buried the ashes of their forty-six dead’
I Love This Dirty Town
Anjum Hasan
‘What is hard to miss and impossible not to grieve over is how present-day Shillong has been overwhelmed by the material aspirations of its people.’
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.’
Remembering Iain M Banks
Stuart Kelly
Stuart Kelly remembers Iain Banks, and assesses the influence he's had on this generation of writers.
A.L. Kennedy | First Sentence
A.L. Kennedy
‘I have never seen anyone eat figs in the street and feel I am unsurprised.’
