Explore Essays and memoir
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The House on El Estero
Fernanda Melchor
‘The girl vomited with rage as Jorge recited the prayer. She struggled and squirmed, kicked and spat.’
A story by Fernanda Melchor, translated by Sophie Hughes.
O Brother
John Niven
‘Up on the light box on the wall are the scans of Gary’s brain, bone white standing out against smoked grey.’
John Niven remembers the last days of his brother, Gary.
Brother
Vanessa Onwuemezi
‘Brother, to be your sister is to confront the possibility of having been other than I am.’
Vanessa Onwuemezi on the meaning of sisterhood.
The Stripping of Threads
Jamal Mahjoub
‘I hold no illusions about us being reunited. All of this has gone on for far too long.’
Jamal Mahjoub on family obligation and estrangement.
These Stolen Twins
Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow
‘In our household there was no distinction of feeling between those who were biologically related and those who were simply instructed to regard each other as such.’
Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow on growing up with foster siblings.
Captions
Andrew Miller
‘I note that my brother – he’ll deny it but he was always the moody one – has apparently refused to take Granny’s hand.’
Andrew Miller reflects on three family photographs.
Haunted Houses
Laura Maw
‘Ghost stories, then, are not always characterised by fear. Sometimes, they are stories of belief, comfort, faith.’
Laura Maw on the photography of Corinne May Botz.
How To Milk
Emily Ogden
‘The milking technology for cows is in many ways superior to the one for humans.’
An essay from Emily Ogden’s On Not Knowing.
Words in the Head and Words in the Sentence
Herta Müller
‘During an interrogation speech glows hot in the mouth, and what is spoken freezes.’
Herta Müller on language. Translated from the German by Philip Boehm.
Skromnost
Janet Malcolm
‘The Czech word skromnost means “modesty”, but it also carries a mild sense of forelock-tugging humbleness, of knowing one’s place.’
An excerpt from Janet Malcolm’s final book.
A Wolf in the Forest Wants
Sarah Moss
‘I biked to the hospital anyway, because it didn’t occur to me to think of an alternative form of transport.’
Sarah Moss on her admission to hospital.
Epicrisis
Kirill Kobrin
Kirill Kobrin on living through war and the conflict in Ukraine. Translated from the Russian by Veronika Zitta.