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Blessed Assurance

Allan Gurganus

‘I sold funeral insurance to North Carolina black people.’

Epistle to the New Age

Gore Vidal

‘I’m Bishop of Macedonia, as you will know in time if you are not lucky enough to be in time already.’

New World (Part Four)

Jonathan Raban

‘Sleep has disassembled the self: it will take patience to rebuild a person out of the heap of components in the bed.’

Dry Run

Victoria Tokareva

‘My address book is overpopulated, like a communal apartment during the post-war housing shortage.’

What Remains

Christa Wolf

‘The coffee has to be strong and hot, filtered; the egg not too soft; home-made preserves; black bread.’

Bolivia, 1970

Ryszard Kapuściński

‘There is a demonstration on the other side of La Paz.’

Gift for a Sweetheart

Isabel Allende

‘Horacio Fortunato was forty-six when the languid Jewish woman who was to change his roguish ways and deflate his fanfaronade entered his life.’

A House in the Country

Romesh Gunesekera

‘The nights had always been noisy: frogs, drums, bottles, dogs barking at the moon.’

Time’s Arrow

Martin Amis

‘I came rushing upward out of the blackest sleep to find myself surrounded by doctors.’

Isis in Darkness

Margaret Atwood

‘The lock splits. The iron gate swings open. She emerges, raises her arms towards the suddenly chilled moon. The world changes.’

Electric City

Richard Ford

‘No one, I think, thought Great Falls would burn.’

Fiction by Richard Ford.

New World (Part Three)

Jonathan Raban

‘To my eyes, airplane always looked impertinently casual on the page; it robbed the amazing machine of its proper mystery.’

On a Boat to Tangier

Tahar Ben Jelloun

‘He inspected the chest where the snakes slept. There was the viper, quiet, in a deep sleep.’

Centre of Gravity

Victoria Tokareva

‘For reasons I don’t want to go into, I decided to commit suicide.’