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Better Protect America

Padma Viswanathan

Padma Viswanathan on the absurdities of the US Border Patrol Agency. ‘The new security was going to be unpredictable, by design.’

Borne

Jeff VanderMeer

‘The map of the old horizon was like being haunted by a grotesque fairy tale, something that when voiced came out not as words but as sounds in the aftermath of an atrocity.’

Given

Jesmyn Ward

‘Given played football with single-minded purpose his senior year, the fall before he died.’

I Love You but I’ve Chosen Darkness

Claire Vaye Watkins

‘The uncooperative cadence of the phrase my myspace page perfectly encapsulates the awkwardness of the early oughts when our story begins.’

In This Heart You Burn

D. W. Wilson

‘Years later, broken-chested beneath the axle of a Ford Mustang, he’ll dream back to a night on the shores of Mimeer Lake when he amphetamined through till dawn and cracked some asshat’s nose with his elbow and gave his virginity to Isabel Crease.’

Lovetown

Michal Witkowski

Discover Lovetown: a homo-haven in post-Communist Poland.

Night of the Gnomes

J.R. Wilcock

‘The plan was quite simple: Güendolina would invite him into the bedroom and persuade him to make love to her until he was utterly exhausted.’

Seven People with the Same Name and their Discrete Moments

Han Yujoo

Erica Chung’s translation of ‘Seven People with the Same Name and their Discrete Moments’ by Han Yujoo is the winner of Harvill Secker’s Young Translators’ Prize 2017.

Sorry to Disturb You

Jack Underwood

The only thing scarier than ghosts are the ghosts working at a call center.

Stillness | State of Mind

Eoghan Walls

‘It is half twelve and I am labouring over the word Stillen. My laptop is open on the coffee table, pushed up against baby wipes and a row of empties.’

The Island

Jack Underwood

‘She draws from her mind the image of a giant steel girder, pictures it smashing through the wall of the bar, obliterating everything, legs and arms reaching and waving.’

What Terrible Thing It Was

Esmé Weijun Wang

‘Dennis with his bespectacled eyes on his phone, performing the act of emotional multitasking. While I’ve been psychotic, he’s been phone banking.’