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Paris or Prague?
Milan Kundera
‘May in Paris was an explosion of revolutionary lyricism. The Prague Spring was the explosion of post-revolutionary scepticism.’
Letter from Gaza
Hisham Matar
‘It is difficult not to see the assassination of Ghassan Kanafani as an attempt to obliterate the Palestinian narrative.’
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.
Letter From Pondicherry, India
Akash Kapur
‘When I was growing up in Pondicherry, a former French colony on the south-east coast of India, I would go with my family each Sunday to the beach.‘
Vanishing Virgil
Maaza Mengiste
‘We want to believe that we will die with dignity; that death is a confrontation and the battle is somewhat fair.’
Deeper into the Heart of Borneo (Part II)
Redmond O’Hanlon
‘James, resplendent in leopard skin and hornbill feathers, looked even more solemn than is his habit.’
Murderer in the Family (Part Two)
Rian Malan
‘It's not just their skins that are white; their minds are white, too. They are generic whites with western values.’
Where is Thy Sting-a-Ling-a-Ling?
James Lasdun
‘The fire department didn't have a tall enough ladder to reach his body.’
Siam
Norman Lewis
‘Little surprise was aroused when the model chosen for the new Hat Yai was Dodge City of the 1860s as revealed by the movies.’
Early Retirement
John Lanchester
‘My father used to tell the story of a tutor at his university, a Viennese professor of something or other.’
Lessons from a Hustler
Peter Mountford
‘With Buck, pool was clearly an intellectual exercise and he was scarily cool at the table.’
