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The Assassin

Henk van Woerden

‘On 11 February 1955 a man could be seen wandering about the streets of Hamburg ’.

After the Hedland

Evie Wyld

‘I feel the pull of being alone, of answering to no one, the safety of being unknown and far away.’

The Architect of Unrest

Jeanette Winterson

‘Buildings keep inside them what we love.’

One More Last Stand

Callan Wink

‘It’s funny to think that we existed, us together, before either of our marriages.’

Down in Front

Colson Whitehead

‘This is the part where we find our seats. Step on toes, suck in gut, make yourself flat as a movie screen.’

Gifted

Richard Williams

‘The interim report filed by the investigator from the coroner's bureau listed him as a black male, 5ft 7in tall, weighing 1351b‘.

Dangerous

Joy Williams

‘Grief knows how to love them because we don’t know how to do it any more.’

The Little Winter

Joy Williams

‘She remembered being happy off and on that day, and then looking at things and finding it all unkind.’

What It’s Like

Anya Yurchyshyn

‘I’d been telling myself I would get there and get through it. I’d been telling myself I was doing the right thing, that no one could escape doing this thing and that was why the thing was right, not wrong.’

Home is Here Now

David Xiao

‘I told June that the woman they uncovered was not our daughter.’

Something Close to Heaven

Evie Wyld

‘It was just past nine when the fuel ran out.’

The Lens Factory

John Updike

‘It made him feel lopsided, this sense of being plucked at by nervousness and dread.’

Helen and Julia

Sarah Waters

‘She felt exhausted, emptied out; she thought of the day that had passed—it was astonishing to her, that a single set of hours could contain so many separate states of violent feeling.’

The Poetics of Sex

Jeanette Winterson

‘My lover Picasso is going through her Blue Period. In the past her periods have always been red.’