Explore Essays and memoir
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Chromium
Primo Levi
‘Life is full of customs whose roots can no longer be traced ... but in any event, why were pig's feet obligatory with lentils, and cheese on macaroni?’
My Father’s Life
Leonard Michaels
‘Six days a week he rose early, dressed, ate breakfast alone, put on his hat, and walked to his barbershop at 207 Henry Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, about half a mile from our apartment.’
Essex
Norman Lewis
‘Essex is the ugliest county. I only went there to be able to work in peace and quiet and get away from the settlers from London south of the river.’
The Lord in his Wisdom
Jackie Kay
‘I realize with a fresh horror that Jonathan is seeing me as the sin’
Watching the Rain in Galicia
Gabriel García Márquez
‘Only then did I understand where my grandmother had got that credulity which allowed her to live in a supernatural world in which everything was possible and where rational explanations were totally lacking in validity.’
The Writing of ‘Or Shall We Die?’
Ian McEwan
‘There was too the challenge, as I saw it, of writing a singable English, simple and clear, that could express public themes without pomposity and private feelings without bathos.’
Now A Major Motion Picture
Todd McEwen
‘None of these high-falutin pansy-ass would-be 'technologies' are going to save literature.’
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
The Chelsea Affect
Arthur Miller
‘Despite parboiling myself in the shower a few times I began to like the hotel.’
God and Me
Richard Mabey
‘It’s always been like this for me with spirituality. I catch a whiff of the numinous, and it turns visceral in a moment.’
