Lauren Aimee Curtis

‘I think that if we knew, really understood, the reasons why certain stories take hold of us, we would have no need for fiction at all.’ Lauren Aimee Curtis shares her notes on the craft of writing.

Lauren Aimee Curtis

Lauren Aimee Curtis on why Transit by Anna Seghers is the best book of 1944.

Marie Darrieussecq

‘There is a Europe of life and a Europe of death, on the mass graves of which we perpetuate a dream.’ Translated from the French by Linda Coverdale.

Issue 146

William Davies

‘As reality has grown more absurd, the job of satirists has grown harder.’

Rob Doyle

Foraging for the infamous liberty cap mushroom in Dublin.

‘At the root of my interest in both drugs and art was the longing for an encounter with otherness.’

Issue 27

John Gregory Dunne

‘I prefer not to speculate about what might have happened if I had not taken the ECG.’

Johanna Ekström

Johanna Ekström on memory and assault. Translated from the Swedish by Rachel Willson-Broyles.

Davide Enia

Héctor Abad Faciolince

‘The note stated that it was by Borges, and I believed that, or at least I wanted to believe it.’

Issue 149

Lara Feigel

‘Is that what family is for? Helping you to understand what formed you?’

Issue 15

James Fenton

‘I wanted to see a communist victory, which I presumed to be inevitable. I wanted to see the fall of a city.’

Nicole Flattery

Nicole Flattery on why Penelope Mortimer’s The Pumpkin Eater is the best book of 1962.

Issue 88

Alexandra Fuller

‘It lay like a sodden comma, curled up against its mother, and no one realised it was dead.’

Mary Gaitskill

‘Which deaths are tragic and which are not? Who decides what is big and what is little?’