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Prague: A Disappearing Poem
Milan Kundera
‘Prague, this dramatic and suffering centre of Western destiny, is gradually fading away into the mists of Eastern Europe, to which it has never really belonged.’
Eight Arms to Hold You
Hanif Kureishi
‘One day at school–an all-boys comprehensive on the border between London and Kent–our music teacher told us that John Lennon and Paul McCartney didn't actually write those famous Beatles songs we loved so much.'
Two Keiths and the Wrong Piano
Hanif Kureishi
‘My response to the music had reminded me that concealed inside myself was a more excitable and open self raring to get out.’
Film Diary
Hanif Kureishi
‘I shove the script of Sammy and Rosie Get Laid through Stephen Frears's letter box and run. He rings a few hours later: “This isn't an innocent act!”’
Bradford
Hanif Kureishi
‘Bradford, I felt, was a place I had to see for myself, because it seemed that so many important issues, of race, culture, nationalism, and education, were evident in an extremely concentrated way.’
Erotic Politicians and Mullahs
Hanif Kureishi
‘Strangely, anti-British remarks made me feel patriotic, though I only felt patriotic when I was away from England.’
Wild Women, Wild Men
Hanif Kureishi
‘When I saw them waiting beside their car, I said, ‘You must be freezing.’ It was cold and foggy, the first night of winter, and the two women had matching short skirts and skimpy tops; their legs were bare.’
Playing the Game: The City
David Kynaston
‘It is not a question of how he came to grief, ‘but did he play the game?’’
The Question of Fate
Catherine Lacey
‘The possibility that I’d unwittingly tapped into her fate and used it as fuel for a story sickened me.’
Olivia Laing | Is Travel Writing Dead?
Olivia Laing
‘Which bodies can go where might be the central question of our century.’