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Explore Essays and memoir

Upirngasaq (Arctic Spring)

Sheila Watt-Cloutier

‘Everyone benefits from a frozen Arctic. The future of the Arctic environment, and the Inuit it supports, is inextricably tied to the future of the planet.’

Kōbō Abe

Thomas McMullan

‘Against the immensity of things, look at what you can grasp, he seems to say. Grasp it tightly.’

Thomas McMullan on the writing of Kōbō Abe.

Paris Desert, Tokyo Mirage

Hitomi Kanehara

‘What I thought was the world yesterday, today I couldn’t even touch its outline.’

Two essays by Hitomi Kanehara.

Cheating

Ahmet Altan

‘I get into the police car with four officers from the Anti-Terrorism Branch. They are taking me to the prison.’

Inferno

Catherine Cho

‘My son was eight days shy of his 100-day celebration when I started to see devils in his eyes.’

Catherine Cho’s Inferno is shortlisted for the 2020 Young Writer of the Year Award.

The Death of Distance

Samrat Choudhury

‘It might take only one soldier being shot across the Chinese–Indian border for war to begin. The howitzers, tanks, missiles and fighter jets are lined up, ready and waiting for action.’

The Only Way Out Is Through

Hana Pera Aoake

‘Hiding in kumara pits on the side of volcanoes, I was born with an egg inside me ready to be baked.’

On Meeting Margaret Busby

Sarah Ladipo Manyika

Margaret Busby was Britain’s first Black woman publisher. At the age of twenty, she was also one of its youngest.

Work, or the Swet Shop Boys

Hilary Plum

‘My work life – like, maybe, yours – is built around another, non-paying vocation.’

Cooking from Memory

Barclay Bram

Barclay Bram reports from Chengdu – on the attention to detail in Sichuanese cooking.

Notes on Craft

Amina Cain

‘I would rather work in front of, or behind, a story. I want to leave a chain of images that remain in the reader’s mind.’

Roses

Legacy Russell

‘What if we are not ‘well-behaved’? What then?’

Legacy Russell on her father and the FBI.

Who We’re Reading When We’re Reading Murakami

David Karashima

‘Luke believes that the early stories might not have been published if the author and translator were uncompromising.’

People From My Neighbourhood: Behind the Scenes

Clare Skeats

Clare Skeats on the cover design for Hiromi Kawakami’s latest book of stories, translated by Ted Goossen.