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An Irrelevant Parochialism
Frederick Bowers
‘What strikes an ex-patriate most about the contemporary British novel is its conformity, its traditional sameness, and its realistically rendered provincialism.’
An Island Presence
Howard Cunnell
‘I can almost believe in the permanence of these warm days, this unchanging child whose hand fits mine. But I can feel the cold and the darkness coming.’
Anecdotes
Ann Beattie
‘Christine’s hair had begun to dry, and she looked different, with her hair down and her glasses on. Her earnestness made her look younger, and took me back to the bar where we’d sat in Pennsylvania years ago.’
Ann Beattie | First Sentence
Ann Beattie
‘Several times I’ve wanted to title something one thing, but have realized or been persuaded it isn’t a good idea.’
Antediluvian
John Biguenet
‘To the inexperienced, hurricane stories always sound like exaggerations.’
Anthony Bailey | A London View
Anthony Bailey
I come from a generation which still, fifty-odd years on, looks up and once in a while thinks, 'Good, one of ours.'
Aquino, Marcos and the White House
Mark Malloch Brown
‘Marcos had, in effect, trapped Washington into appearing to endorse a snap election, and the administration - both State Department and White House - was forced to redefine its position.’
Arbos
Teju Cole
‘I made many pictures of such trees, and each time, some analogy to art would impress itself on me, the more so because of the universally locked museum doors.’
Assault by Water
Tim Binding
‘Having come here for a purpose, to trace the fault line of his own history, he searches for the year that saw its inception.’
Auto Mind
Adrian Daub
‘Today, Germany knows it’s supposed to talk about cars.’
Adrian Daub on car-washing the past.
Bad Women, Good Feminists?
Damian Barr
‘I was told I was not a feminist and never could be, because I was a man.’
Baghdad Diary
Nuha al-Radi
‘Other countries do wrong: look what Russia did in Afghanistan, or Turkey invading Cyprus, or Israel taking over Palestine and Lebanon. Nobody bombed them senseless. They were not even punished. Perhaps we have too much history.’
