Explore Essays and memoir
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Héctor Abad | First Sentence
Héctor Abad
‘Ever since this happened to me, I haven’t really believed in free will.’
Mess
Romesh Gunesekera
‘You have to go on the offensive until you smell victory. Then you have the aphrodisiac and can go full tilt.’
Yiyun Li | First Sentence
Yiyun Li
‘But for her, and perhaps for many, the solidity of an invented life is not trustworthy.’
The Second Night is Ending
Mikail Eldin
‘This winter and this forest will leave you with a shiver in your heart, which will appear whenever you see a winter forest, even in pictures.’
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.’
Kopfkino
Chloe Aridjis
‘Yet the little white disks with a dent down the middle are no panacea; whenever I take one of these thought guillotines I feel trapped in a grey zone’.
Naomi Alderman | My Writing Playlist
Naomi Alderman
Naomi Alderman shares five songs she loves to write to.
Ninth and Race
Dan Burt
‘Prostitution, gambling, fencing, contract murder, loan-sharking, political corruption and crime of every sort were the daily trade in Philadelphia’s Tenderloin, the oldest part of town.’
Ross Raisin | On Tour
Ross Raisin
‘I was up at 5.30 this morning, to screaming, and it’s afternoon now and I’m covered in hummus and struggling to muster the energy to remove it from myself.’
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.’
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.’
