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Tatyana Tolstaya
'I didn't start out a writer, and had no plans of becoming one.' Tatyana Tolstaya, translated from the Russian by Anya Migdal
A Brief History of a Musical Failure
Catherine Tice
‘At the end of the piece, there was silence, followed by a sudden thunder of feet and bows on the stands. A thrilling noise.’
A Confession
Jess Row
‘I walk out of the theatre in a daze. I’ve glimpsed something. But a glimpse, as it turns out, is not enough.’
A Family in Nanjing
Colin Thubron
‘The old people had prepared a banquet for me - an extravagant spread of cold meats and dumplings which we ate with the prestige television blaring, and nobody watching it.’
A Guide to the City of Beirut
Fawwaz Traboulsi
‘In Beirut, a well reveals layer upon layer, generation after generation, of ruins.’
A Hippy Among Communists
Klaus Schlesinger
‘In March 1975, thirty years after the collapse of German fascism, N., a student from Berlin – bearded and long-haired – attended a series of lectures at a university on the Baltic coast.’
A Little Closer
Angelique Stevens
‘We were twelve and thirteen and smoking cigarettes in our basement with friends – Mom and Dad at work, Hall & Oates on forty-five.’
Angelique Stevens recalls the year her sister went missing.
A Mid-life Crisis
Patrick Süskind
‘Just what exactly is it that belongs together, pray tell? Absolutely nothing!’
A Note on Shakespeare
Harold Pinter
‘Shakespeare writes of the open wound and, through him, we know it open and know it closed. We tell when it ceases to beat and tell it at its highest peak of fever‘, Harold Pinter in 'A Note on Shakespeare' in Granta 59: France: The Outsider.
A Place on Earth: Scenes from a War
Anjan Sundaram
Dense forest and formless roads lead Anjan Sundaram to the sites of conflict in the Central African Republic in 2014.