Explore Essays and memoir
Sort by:
Sort by:
Wrestling with Translation
Jeffrey Yang
‘As I embarked on my adventure I immediately started to feel that old hatred for simplified Chinese characters.’
Leaving Chi-town
Bruce Olds
‘It will sound odd, but it was as if the city was calling me back, back to a place I never had lived.’
What is Chicago
Lawrence Joseph
‘For all its buildings and skyscrapers and sprawl, Chicago is still a part of, and as open as, the prairies. The lake, ocean-like, is flat and utterly exposed.’
Walker Brothers
Peter Orner
‘When Allen Dorfman was gunned down in the parking lot of the purple Hyatt in Lincolnwood, my grandfather took great pride in the fact that one of our own was still high enough in the mob to rub out.’
A Bar on North Avenue
Roger Ebert
‘We regulars knew each other. We dated each other. We slept with each other.’
After Lockerbie
George Rosie
‘I’ve seen many images from the Lockerbie calamity since but none has stayed with me like the picture of Shannon’s pretty, smiling face.’
Only Connect
Anita Sethi
‘The performativity of the experience is in some respects akin to watching real-life television; an unfolding soap opera in which the players are not fictional.’
An Education
Lynn Barber
‘The whole meeting seemed completely unreal but then everything at that time seemed unreal, so I said ‘Yes, by all means make the film,’ and went back to the hospital and forgot about her.’
Capital Gains
Rana Dasgupta
‘The society that has emerged in post-liberalization India is one consumed both by euphoria and dread.’
