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Servitude

Tessa Hadley

‘We had each needed the other for something, which wasn’t kindness or love. We’d both had dry husks for our hearts, that day.’

The Devil’s Kitchen

Russell Hoban

‘I'll now describe this artefact as precisely as I can because I want to make it perfectly clear that when I bought it there was no reason for me to think that it was anything more than what it appeared to be.’

Bachelor Life

M.J. Fitzgerald

‘At nine o’clock the man leaves the flat dressed in an elegant salmon-pink dress’.

Dreams of a Leisure Society

Adam Foulds

‘They were citizens of a multidimensional universe and they liked to get high.’

In the Country

Tessa Hadley

‘She wondered if she would have the audacity, when the time came, to let herself go like that.’

On a Boat to Tangier

Tahar Ben Jelloun

‘He inspected the chest where the snakes slept. There was the viper, quiet, in a deep sleep.’

The Reservation

Sarah Hall

‘He can dream of fields of unicorns or invest in the reanimation of sabretooth DNA, if the prognostication visits him.’

The Archive

Sebastià Jovani

‘The aim of this study is to visualise a means of understanding the essential aspects of a literary text.’

May We Be Forgiven

A.M. Homes

‘Now I understand the meaning of — it just happened. Or — it was an accident.’

Habibi

Ruth Gershon

Can you still find this day, Habibi, among your possessions?’.

The Place of Losses

Rodrigo Hasbún

‘I’m getting a divorce, I’m considering a divorce, I think I want a divorce.’

Even Pretty Eyes Commit Crimes

M.J. Hyland

‘My father was sitting on my doorstep. He was wearing khaki shorts, his bare head was exposed to the full bore of the sun, and he was holding a pineapple.’

More Afraid of You

Joshua Ferris

‘On Bainbridge Island, across the Puget Sound from Seattle, there are two modes of living: downtown and inland.’

L,U,C,I,E

Nadine Gordimer

‘I correct the spelling because I’m a lawyer and I’m accustomed to precision in language; in legal documents the displacement of a comma can change the intention expressed in a sentence and lead to new litigation.’