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The Emotions are not Skilled Workers

Elliot Perlman

‘He is wrong, though. You didn’t read poetry at all. He had wanted you to read poetry but you didn’t.’

Valencia Palace Hotel

Annie Perreault

A story by Annie Perreault, translated from the French by Rhonda Mullins, for the online edition of Granta 141: Canada.

Hôtel Valencia Palace

Annie Perreault

Ce jour-là, comme chaque jour, des poissons avaient nagé au-dessus des têtes.

The Sweet Sop

Ingrid Persaud

‘The memory of chocolate made the man crazy to see me. I became Reggie’s dealer. A voice on the phone would whisper, ‘Two Kit Kat’ and hang up.’

Rachel Reaches Out

Ben Pester

‘She hit send and sighed as the email-whoosh came through her headphones. Theo was sitting at his desk less than six metres away.’

All Silky and Wonderful

Ben Pester

A trip on a commuter train takes a surreal turn in new fiction by Ben Pester.

Our Circle

Ludmilla Petrushevskaya

‘I am afraid that my memory is confused about these events, the final events of my life, by which I mean what happened before I started to go blind.’

Solly and Lark

Jayne Anne Phillips

‘If he got inside me I would never get away.’

Mother Care

Jayne Anne Phillips

‘After the birth and the overnight in the hospital she didn’t go downstairs for a week.’

Danner, 1965

Jayne Anne Phillips

‘She was sliding down on the seat under him and it was like the soundtrack at the drive-in – a surface closed over her.’

Termite’s Birthday, 1959

Jayne Anne Phillips

‘It's like by the time he was born there was too much to know.’

Rayme – A Memoir of the Seventies

Jayne Anne Phillips

‘This story could be about any one of those people, but it is about Rayme and comes to no conclusions.’

Buddy Carmody

Jayne Anne Phillips

‘No one was safe walking to church in the dark, but Buddy knew better than to beg not to go'.

Fast Lanes

Jayne Anne Phillips

‘I was vanished, invisible, another apartment left empty behind me, my possessions given away, thrown away, packed away in taped boxes fit into an available vehicle.’