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A Few Words about Fake Breasts

Nell Boeschenstein

‘You repeat this over and over. You pinch your nipples harder. Then harder and harder still. You twist them. You dare them to say Mercy. You stare into your own eyes that are watching you from the mirror.’

A Gentle Madness

Humera Afridi

‘Pakistan is a nation of memory keepers. We feed our memories as if they are guests at tea, pay homage to them.’

A Hat for Lemer

Cecil Browne

Winner of the 2022 Commonwealth Writers Short Story Prize for Canada and Europe.

A History

William Cooper

‘She was fighting for breath, fighting to live, perhaps fighting not to leave us.’

A Job on the Line

Desmond Barry

‘The atmosphere in the house was thick with my father's depression.’

A Kept Woman

Laura Bell

‘I find myself walking the high trail between fear and love.’

A Letter to my Sons: War’s End

Heinrich Böll

‘No, it's not easier for you than it was for us: don't let them tell you otherwise.’

A Letter to Our Son

Peter Carey

‘We talked about Alison’s blood. We asked her what she thought this mystery could be. Really what we wanted was to be told that everything was OK. There was a look on Alison's face when she asked. I cannot describe it, but it was not a face seeking medical “facts”.’

A Literature for Politics: Introduction

Bill Buford

‘‘A Literature for Politics' is dedicated to a different set of possibilities - the possibilities of political engagement.’

A Numbered Graph That Shows How Each Part of the Body Would Fit Into A Chair

Mary Jo Bang

‘It’s a simple truth that one can occupy two / places at one time while sitting in a chair—the same way a / poseable doll can be divided from her dress.’

A Pinch of Salt

Andrea Brady

‘When we’re close to weaning / ourselves history gives us its reasons / to return’

A Plug for Bukowski

Henry Davis

‘There is an American literature that is anti-intellectual, apolitical and anti-social.’

A Poet in Cuba

Reinaldo Arenas

‘Perfect totalitarian systems have always been in the vanguard: they modify not only the past and the future, but they also abolish the present.’