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Explore Essays and memoir

Family Album

Mikal Gilmore

‘I am the brother of a man who murdered innocent men.’

Journals and Letters

Sappho Durrell

‘I can’t carry anyone else’s fears; I have enough to contend with of my own.’

Field Burning

William Wharton

‘I thought after what had happened to us in the past twenty-four hours I’d never be scared to die again, but I am.’

Waterway

Geoffrey Wolff

‘You would not guess looking into my son's bedroom at home that Blackwing’s ice box would have been scrubbed, but it had been scrubbed.’

A Fish Out of Water

Mario Vargas Llosa

‘A democracy, I said, is driven by the electoral process, and in elections there are victories and defeats.’

The Press Officer

Alvaro Vargas Llosa

‘The threat of Fujimori was well hidden. There was nothing we could do: the die was cast.’

The Consultant

Mark Malloch Brown

‘Let the old politicians run against you. It will restore your political independence and make you unbeatable.’

Election Night in Nicaragua

Sergio Ramirez

‘There was no room in our dreams for another war.’

Cairo

David Grossman

‘Cairo empties you instantly, leaving only eyes and ears and nose.’

The Unbearable Peace

John le Carré

‘It is a journalistic conceit to pretend you are unmoved by people. But I am not a journalist and I am not superior to this encounter.’

Switzerland Without an Army?

Max Frisch

‘Why should Switzerland of all places have no army? It costs billions and billions, but we can afford it.’

Václav Havel in Zürich

Friedrich Dürrenmatt

‘It so happens that the Swiss are a warlike people, even though no one has attacked us for over 200 years.’

A Mid-life Crisis

Patrick Süskind

‘Just what exactly is it that belongs together, pray tell? Absolutely nothing!’

Family Arguments

Wolf Biermann

‘What should the writer do in the dark times of tyranny?’