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Her Lousy Shoes

Tracy O’Neill

‘On good days, he could believe that that was exactly what he appeared to be: pedestrian, a pedestrian, a walker, walking, going places, on the ups, possessing two healthy feet at least.’

It was discovered that gut bacteria were responsible

Kathryn Maris

‘this dream that might have been pleasant for an / 8-year-old could instead emerge as a nightmare for a woman / on the brink of menopause’

Nothing Ever Happens Here

Ottessa Moshfegh

‘I was broke, and I was a nobody, but I was happy.’

The Buzzard’s Egg

China Miéville

‘I can’t remember: did a young man destroy his miserable god, or did a god free its worshipper and take his blood and his bones?’

Dr J

Kalpana Narayanan

‘My father has his own language for everything. When I finished my MFA, I was a NINJA: No Income, No Job, No Assets.’

Lagos Must Prosper

Alexis Okeowo

21 million people, $91 billion GDP, an ambitious governor whose term is up: Alexis Okeowo on the megacity of Lagos

Item Girls

Kuzhali Manickavel

‘I have heard the item girls singing each to each. / I do not think they will sing to me.’

Patna Roughcuts

Amitava Kumar

Amitava Kumar returns to his hometown of Patna

Drone

Hari Kunzru

‘Rich men have been building tall on this hill for centuries.’

A Double-Income Family

Deepti Kapoor

When Mrs Mehra leaves Delhi she retires in one of ‘the vast new satellite townships on the eastern fringes of the metropolis’.

Shunaka: Blood Count

Karthika Naïr

‘Shyama, Sister, why / the need for dazed allegiance / to men?’

Pyre

Amitava Kumar

‘In more ways than one, the rituals of death had reminded me that I was an outsider.’

Gandhi the Londoner

Sam Miller

‘On 29 September 1888, an Indian teenager with a mild case of ringworm and a fine head of hair sailed into the Thames Estuary.’ Sam Miller on Ghandi's time in London.

The Ghost in the Kimono

Raghu Karnad

Deep in the dense volume of Delhi’s history Raghu Kardad investigates ‘the remarkable, untold story of the Japanese in the Old Fort’.