Explore Essays and memoir
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1979
Aminatta Forna
‘What happened in 1979 has happened many times before and many times since, in places where people have set themselves free and believed with all their hearts that the freedom they had fought for was real and lasting, only to be recaptured.’
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 Dynasty of Album Cover Art
Lemi Ghariokwu
‘The music is as powerful as it gets and beneath his knife-edge, cutting sarcasm, Fela’s voice rages.’
A Rationalist in the Jungle
Héctor Abad
‘A pale-faced, near-sighted urbanite like me is nothing less than handicapped in the heart of the jungle.’
A Walk to Kobe
Haruki Murakami
‘What I’m talking about is a different sea, and different mountains.’ Haruki Murakami walks to his hometown after the Great Hanshin earthquake of 1995.
A.L. Kennedy | First Sentence
A.L. Kennedy
‘I have never seen anyone eat figs in the street and feel I am unsurprised.’
After Silk Road
Mike Power
‘The Dark Web is a shadow internet, an unindexed, unseen and lawless corner of cyberspace.’
Ange Mlinko | First Sentence
Ange Mlinko
‘I rediscovered the efficacy of meter (or the ‘contrast between fixity and flux’) when I was stuck in a shark tunnel with my kids and was afraid I was coming down with a panic attack.’
Betrayal
Adam Foulds
‘The thrill of this film – and it is thrilling – is seeing that understood and played out by actors of incredible skill.’
Chinua Achebe’s Legacy
Ike Anya
‘Who will speak out for us now? Who will ask the hard questions of us and the world that he did?’
