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Explore Essays and memoir

Amit Chaudhuri | First Sentence

Amit Chaudhuri

‘A scene in which nothing is ostensibly happening will absorb me; so will a paragraph that contains no vital piece of information.’

An Island Presence

Howard Cunnell

‘I can almost believe in the permanence of these warm days, this unchanging child whose hand fits mine. But I can feel the cold and the darkness coming.’

Between Great Fires

William Atkins

‘This is the perennial anxiety – that at any moment, day or night, you might be snatched and shackled and tried and sent back.’

Clown School

Nuar Alsadir

Political resistance, poetry, self-revelation all spring from that provocative, impish drive to burst free from external constraints.

Crossing Borders

Carys Davies

Carys Davies on how the settlement of the American West can help us understand Donald Trump’s nativism.

Cyprus United

Joe Dunthorne

‘The idea that football might provide an opportunity to overcome our dumber instincts seemed ridiculous now: football was a chance to set our idiocy free.’

Davos Woman

Trisha De Borchgrave

‘Did she process my gentle hand in the same way as the objectifying touch of the men before me? Did she know the difference?’

Écrire Avec Facultés Affaiblies

Fanny Britt

Comme il a grandi, j’ai pensé, puis j’ai passé la débarbouillette sous l’eau tiède du lavabo de la salle de bain.

Elif Batuman | Is Travel Writing Dead?

Elif Batuman

‘The power imbalance built into travel writing is just a heightened version of an imbalance that’s there in all writing.’

Geoff Dyer | Is Travel Writing Dead?

Geoff Dyer

‘What kinds of writing aren’t travel writing?’

hardcore thigh burn | Discoveries

Eleanor Chandler

This week’s Discoveries is full of rad poetry, translations and criticism.

I Am Lying

Miranda Doyle

‘Findings show that the bigger the brain, the more frequent the deceit.’ Miranda Doyle on why we lie.

Microtravel: Home and Away

Anthony (Vahni) Capildeo

‘The place I thought I knew best had become unknown territory, by the perhaps not-so-simple process of taking a few steps.’

Notes on a Suicide

Rana Dasgupta

‘The problem was that, for the most part, it did not matter how widely broadcast your discontent was: no one cared.’

Rana Dasgupta on digital celebrity and a suicide in the banlieues of Paris.