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Five Cats and Three Women

J. Robert Lennon

‘While he didn't mind (not much anyway) being responsible for the death of one cat, his cat, he did not feel good shouldering the death of four cats.’

Reference Points

Philip Kerr

‘It was eating oysters, four hundred of the bivalve sons-of-bitches, that finally killed my father, in a theatre-bar off St Martin's Lane.‘

Happiness

Andrés Neuman

‘My name is Marcos. I’ve always wanted to be Cristóbal.’

Drone

Hari Kunzru

‘Rich men have been building tall on this hill for centuries.’

House Fire

Yiyun Li

‘The six friends declared war against love outside marriage.’

Motorama 1954

Bill Morris

‘It was at sundown on New Year's Day 1954 that Claire Hathaway began to feel embarrassed by her new television set.’

The Wrong Square

Neel Mukherjee

‘Something as fundamental to intelligence as counting was eluding him.’

God Bless You, 2011

Hiromi Kawakami

‘If the god of uranium really exists, then what must he be thinking? Were this a fairy tale of old, what would happen when humans broke the laws of nature to turn gods into minions?’ Hiromi Kawakami on the nature gods of Japan.

The Great Wall

Ismail Kadaré

‘What China loses by the sword it retakes by silk.’

The War Artist

Margaret Luongo

‘On the third day, the little rosebud teacups rattled in their saucers as the war artist poured the coffee.’

Two Girls in a Boat

Emma Martin

‘This was a tiredness that caused Hannah to walk into a travel agent in Clapham High Street on a grey Tuesday morning and buy a ticket to New Zealand.’

Lover

Joyce Carol Oates

‘You won't know me, won't see my face. Unless you see my face. And then it will be too late.’

Room 536

A.L. Kennedy

‘The world cannot be as this is, I refuse to accept it.’

From Dream to Dream

Yiyun Li

‘At what point had one’s life stopped belonging to one?’