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A Few Words about Fake Breasts

Nell Boeschenstein

‘You repeat this over and over. You pinch your nipples harder. Then harder and harder still. You twist them. You dare them to say Mercy. You stare into your own eyes that are watching you from the mirror.’

A Summer of Japanese Literature

Dan Bradley

From manga to crime fiction, contemporary literature to Nobel-Prize-winning classics, here are ten works of Japanese literature worth spending your summer on

Murasaki’s Paper Trail

Martin Puchner

Martin Puchner on how Murasaki Shikibu, a lady-in-waiting at the Japanese court, manage to write the first great novel of world literature.

Fred Pearce | Notes on Craft

Fred Pearce

‘For a hack like me, book-length meta-journalism is both a luxury and a challenge. I cannot hide my own views over 100,000 words, even if I want to.’

Introduction

Sigrid Rausing

Editor and publisher Sigrid Rausing introduces Granta 144: genericlovestory.

I Bite My Friends

Fernanda Eberstadt

‘The Easter Parade is winding down, when I spot Him. Her. Them. The Apparition.’

On Paris Hilton and Other Undead Things

Brittany Newell

‘What sex tapes offer, on a hauntological level, is an impossible closeness to that which is neither dead nor alive.’

Telling My Story

Stella Duffy

‘I wonder if they could all smell the queer on me, the queer in me, the burgeoning sexuality that I had no words for at the time.’

Cross-Dressers

Sébastien Lifshitz & Andrew McMillan

‘These images appear to give a glimpse of a ghost-self, a photographic negative of the heart.’ Andrew McMillan introduces photography curated by Sébastien Lifshitz.

Abscessed Tooth

Debra Gwartney

‘Silence allows me to pretend that this happened to someone else a long time ago, and not to me.’

Chameleon

Tomoko Sawada & Sayaka Murata

‘If Sawada can transform herself without limit, maybe I can too.’ Sayaka Murata introduces Tomoko Sawada’s photographs, translated from the Japanese by Ginny Tapley Takemori.

See What You Do to Me

TaraShea Nesbit

‘My intention was to protect myself, and not to have to go back on my word.’

On the Trouble of Bound Association

Lisa Wells

‘We cannot know our era as it’s unfolding.’

Jailbait

Ottessa Moshfegh

‘Part of what made him interesting was that I felt he would dismiss me the moment I bored him.’