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Introduction

Thomas Meaney

‘There can be any number of significant others in a life. Some we know for a long time; others are meteoric: we may see them only once.’

The editor introduces the issue.

The Museum Guard

J.M. Coetzee

‘Do they strike people as a strange couple? He does not know, does not care.’

Fiction by J.M. Coetzee.

Private View

Sophie Collins

‘Being recognised as part of a couple thrilled me; I felt legitimised. John had a life, a full life.’

Fiction by Sophie Collins.

Two Poems

Zoë Hitzig

‘just like that, I’m just your state, state of play’

Poetry by Zoë Hitzig.

Embrace

Kevin Brazil

‘Love is a concept about which I have long been very sceptical. I have seen the damage that can be done, and can be justified, in the name of love.’

Fiction by Kevin Brazil.

New Kindness Hatching

Jesse Glazzard & Anthony Vahni Capildeo

‘The invisible artist who invites us to stand beside him is clearly among friends; being kind, being of a kind; witnessing with-ness.’

Jesse Glazzard photographs Camp Trans, with an introduction by Anthony Vahni Capildeo.

The Messiah of Cadoxton

Susan Pedersen

‘The script of script production rather followed the script of sex: it was intimate, exciting, boundary-crossing, and left the participants changed.’

Susan Pedersen on paranormal love in the Balfour family.

Three Mukhatabat

Najwan Darwish

‘He said to me: / Love led me / to pity my own self, / to grieve it / with a vertical grief.’

Poetry by Najwan Darwish. Translated from the Arabic by Kareem James Abu-Zeid.

A Woman I Once Knew

Rosalind Fox Solomon & Lynne Tillman

‘These are not gentle, passive female bodies. They are strong women who strike poses that show aggression.’

Lynne Tillman introduces Rosalind Fox Solomon’s self-portraits.

A Journey to Ayodhya

Snigdha Poonam

‘Ask anyone in Ayodhya, and they will say the city’s Hindu–Muslim harmony can withstand any test.’

Snigdha Poonam on the construction of a Hindu temple on the ruins of a mosque in Utter Pradesh.

Bitter North

Alexandra Tanner

‘Eight years in, Hal felt like another her, somehow.’

Fiction by Alexandra Tanner.

Literature Without Literature

Christian Lorentzen

‘Corporate publishing is the channel through which literature happens to flow at this moment in history.’

Christian Lorentzen dissects the literary establishment.

The Weight of the Earth

Debmalya Ray Choudhuri & John-Baptiste Oduor

‘The presence of another person at the scene is suggested. The image invites you to imagine their position and to mentally assume it.’

Photography by Debmalya Ray Choudhuri, introduced by John-Baptiste Oduor.

Gold Fever in the Coup Belt: The Mines of Mauritania

James Pogue

‘The whole arc of the failed promise of development became legible in the traces of the gold rush.’

James Pogue reports from the gold mines of Mauritania.