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Explore Essays and memoir

In Freud’s Shadow

André Aciman

‘We all have ways of placing markers on our lives.’

Writing Like Degas Paints

Sulaiman Addonia

Sulaiman Addonia on how Edgar Degas’s nude portraits inspired his latest novel, Silence Is My Mother Tongue.

Mr Wu

Pallavi Aiyar

‘A middle-aged woman in teddy bear-spangled pajamas came hurtling down on a flatbed tricycle.’ Pallavi Aiyar returns to her old Beijing hutong.

since feeling is first

Nuar Alsadir

‘The way we manage erotic knowledge is connected to our handling of unwanted truths’

I Will Never See the World Again

Ahmet Altan

‘I was in a cage because a man had eaten an apple.’ Translated from the Turkish by Yasemin Çongar.

The Editor’s Chair: On Christine Montalbetti

Alex Andriesse

‘For Montalbetti to have achieved this syntactic ease in French is a feat. For the translator to reproduce it in English requires the capacities of a medium.’

On Rihanna

Alexia Arthurs

‘Rihanna had cut her hair short, and she was no longer being marketed as the Caribbean Beyoncé.’

Dog

Nadeem Aslam

‘More than once the new dog was aggressive, a stab of fire, but I did not tell the grown-ups. I feared they would take him away.’

Who Killed Tolstoy?

Elif Batuman

‘I walked along the birch-lined alleys of Yasnaya Polyana, looking for clues. Snakes were swimming in the pond, making a rippling pattern. Everything here was a museum.’

What Do Women Want?

Devorah Baum

‘What we’re arguing about turns out to be how to speak to each other at all.’

The Infinite Goldfish

Sara Baume

In the beginning, there was the goldfish.

Breasts: A History

Krys Malcolm Belc

‘My breasts are shrinking. As my fat redistributes it settles in my belly and leaves my chest.’

Kent Will Tear Us Apart

Neil Belton

All the Devils Are Here was cursed with the status of a cult classic. It’s a book that people who’ve read it, especially writers, can never forget.

The Editor’s Chair: On Daša Drndić

Katharina Bielenberg

‘Language is always logic, no matter which language it is.’