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A Literature for Politics: Introduction
Bill Buford
‘‘A Literature for Politics' is dedicated to a different set of possibilities - the possibilities of political engagement.’
The Plano Suicides
Stefan Merrill Block
‘My parents moved us to Plano for the reasons so many move to Plano: jobs, good schools, a town perfectly engineered to render successful families.’
The First Sense
Robyn Davidson
‘Hearing, they say, is the first of the senses we develop in the womb.’
According to Your Will
Naomi Alderman
‘Thank you, God,’ said the boys, ‘for not making me a woman.’ ‘Thank you, God,’ said the girls, ‘for making me according to Your will.’
Loot
Christopher de Bellaigue
‘As I observed the foreigners at the museum, who turned out mostly to be archaeologists, two American soldiers crossed towards the group.’
Chinua Achebe’s Legacy
Ike Anya
‘Who will speak out for us now? Who will ask the hard questions of us and the world that he did?’
After Maidan
Oliver Bullough
‘A woman asked the steward behind the registration desk if our flight to Moscow was domestic or international. “We are still working on that,” the man answered.’
South of Nowhere
Antonio Lobo Antunes
‘If you and I were anteaters, instead of a man and a woman talking to each other in this corner of the bar, perhaps I would then be able to accustom myself to your silence.’
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”.’
German Efficiency
Heinrich Böll
‘I hate the man who stood back to back with me for the hour-long journey from Düsseldorf to Cologne.’
Lost in Translation
Daniel Alarcón
‘It’s about the music of it. “It’s Hollywood,” Mario said, and assured me the same is true of political speech-making.’
World War II Has Never Ended
Michael W. Clune
‘I discovered Hitler the summer I turned twelve. I found him in the centre of a map in a computer game called Beyond Castle Wolfenstein. I destroyed him with a bomb.’
