Explore Essays and memoir
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Africa Writes
Caitlin Pearson
The Royal African Society takes a look back at the history of the Africa Writes festival, their annual celebration of contemporary literature from Africa and the diaspora.
Ways of Looking
Lulah Ellender
‘He is like a mantling hawk, his heft and body spreading over his prey as he tears off pieces of her with his eyes.’ Lulah Ellender on the male gaze.
The Man Who Lived
Snigdha Poonam
Snigdha Poonam on how WhatsApp is being used to encourage mob violence in India.
Louise Bourgeois as I Knew Her
Jean Frémon
‘The portrait is built up of tiny strokes, one added upon another, like dashes of pencil.’ Translated from the French by Cole Swensen.
Four Syrian Borders: A Motorcycle Journey, 2007
Esa Aldegheri & Gavin Francis
‘The landscape, glimpsed through plumes of dust thrown up by trucks, grew drier, more hostile as it climbed away from the sea.’
Mother’s Death
Stephen Sharp
‘Last year father attacked me as a “wet radish”. This caused me to give up writing diary entries.’
Palmyra
Charles Glass & Don McCullin
‘ISIS’s second conquest of Palmyra astonished everyone, and fed the belief in a Syrian government conspiracy to assist ISIS.’
New Town Blues
Jason Cowley & Gus Palmer
‘They had believed they were coming to a new town. But, they said, Harlow wasn’t new: it looked old.’
Renderings
Edward Burtynsky & Anthony Doerr
‘Often when I stare into the alien circuitry of a Burtynsky picture, it takes me a while to figure out what has actually been photographed.’ Anthony Doerr introduces Edward Burtynsky’s photographs.
The Last Shopkeepers of London
David Flusfeder
‘It became a kind of mission to find contemporaries of theirs that weren’t closing down, establishments that have continued to flourish, or at least endure.’
