Issue 162

Catherine Lacey

‘Grief has a warring logic; it always wants something impossible, something worse and something better.’

An extract from Biography of X by Catherine Lacey.

Megan Kamalei Kakimoto

‘Was the sunburn part of the shtick? she wondered while the video continued to play.’

Rebecca Rukeyser

On seasonal work in Alaska and Kelly Reichardt.

Jack Parlett

On the queer history of New York’s Fire Island.

Yoko Tawada

‘You don’t understand. The country where I used to live is now gone.’

Alex Hyde

‘There was the enamel pail of blood. She couldn’t think what she had done with it.’

An excerpt from Alex Hyde’s debut novel.

Sayaka Murata

An excerpt from Earthlings, translated from the Japanese by Ginny Tapley Takemori.

Anna Della Subin

An excerpt from Anna Della Subin’s Accidental Gods.

Eleanor Catton

Alex Hyde

‘The scrubbing of floors or rugs. People down on their knees, “tamping” the stain.’ Alex Hyde on the everyday gestures that make a life.

Susanne Wedlich

‘We are all creatures of slime, but some of us are more creative than others’.

An excerpt from the BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week, Slime.

Fred Pearce

A chapter from A Trillion Trees: How We Can Reforest Our World.

Anuk Arudpragasam

An excerpt from A Passage North, longlisted for the Booker Prize.