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Gold Fever in the Coup Belt: The Mines of Mauritania

James Pogue

‘The whole arc of the failed promise of development became legible in the traces of the gold rush.’

James Pogue reports from the gold mines of Mauritania.

The Pneuma Illusion

Mary Gaitskill

‘The intensity of it seemed in retrospect something inexplicable, like a sudden opening in the sky with an outpouring of visions.’

Mary Gaitskill on her experiences with Pneuma therapy.

Lígia

Victor Heringer

‘Today, three years after I befriended him to see him die, the idea of losing Sr Mendes has left me all mixed up.’

A short story by Victor Heringer, translated by James Young.

Moon

Bernadette Van-Huy

‘It hides in the wings during the day’

Poetry by Bernadette Van-Huy.

Lovers’ Quarrel

Tamara Nassar

‘Certainly we are not too old for that day / as dense as age on your bedroom floor.’

Poetry by Tamara Nassar.

Armance

Fleur Jaeggy

‘I don’t think much of the very silly, even gullible, person that I am.’

Fiction by Fleur Jaeggy, translated by Gini Alhadeff.

Dispatch from Kyiv

Yevgenia Belorusets

‘Against the backdrop of the Russian onslaught, all everyday concerns, the facts and things that make everyday life, literally life, seem like luxuries.’

Yevgenia Belorusets on conscription in Ukraine.

Death to Books

Luke Allan

‘In her concern for making a tidy death, my mum overlooked that other kind of mess which is grief, and guilt, and confusion.’

Memoir by Luke Allan.

Honeymoon

Allen Bratton

‘On all sides he is surrounded by old people: jowly liver-spotted men in wrinkled suits, brown-toothed women in Thatcher drag, holding forth with tiresome decorum on coal imports, road safety, the economy of Northern Ireland.’

Fiction by Allen Bratton.

Podcast | Sheila Heti

Sheila Heti

‘It ended up taking fourteen years. But on the other hand, it only ended up taking five minutes.’

Sheila Heti on writing her latest book, Alphabetical Diaries, editing and the instability of a self-portrait.

Cracked Plate

Nicola Dinan

‘Later that day, Emma had thought of Nina while Toby fucked her in bed. Isn’t that fucked? Thinking about the other girl he was fucking. Her friend.’

Fiction by Nicola Dinan.

Bed of Nails

Kathy Stevens

‘I should warn you, she said, ketchup on her chin, on the back of her hand. I like to have sex a lot.’

Fiction by Kathy Stevens.

In Conversation

Robert Gluck & K Patrick

‘Desire charges the landscape with physical upheaval. We become water, weather. And why not? Why describe a character by the hat she is wearing instead of her experience of orgasm?’

Robert Glück and K Patrick on writing desire.

Power Metals

Nicolas Niarchos

‘The city, which is home to more than 300,000 people, is collapsing into the millions of shallow, square holes that have been cut into the ground.’

Nicolas Niarchos on mineral extraction in Manono, the Democratic Republic of the Congo.