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4 3 2 1: Overture
Paul Auster
‘According to family legend, Ferguson’s grandfather departed on foot from his native city of Minsk with one hundred rubles sewn into the lining of his jacket’
An extract from 4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster.
from The Franchiser
Stanley Elkin
‘In sickness he understood what he never had in health, that his body, anyone’s, everyone’s, was something for the public record.’
A Certain King
Jennifer Atkins
‘I didn’t think she was happy; I thought she was in love, but I didn’t know what that told me, if it told me anything.’
Fiction by Jennifer Atkins.
A Day in the Life in El Salvador
Manlio Argueta
‘I have not failed you, José. I understand that you were saying goodbye when you opened your eye, and that, besides greeting me, you were expressing your pride in me, seeing me standing with my arm around the shoulders of your granddaughter.’
A Dying Tongue
Sarah Bernstein
‘What needs explaining was that, and it was a funny thing, a very funny thing, I did not speak the language.’
An extract from Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein.
A Hat for Lemer
Cecil Browne
Winner of the 2022 Commonwealth Writers Short Story Prize for Canada and Europe.
A Sentence of Love
Assia Djebar
‘I met Annie for the first time in 1995, in Algiers. A friend of my sister's, she came from Paris and stayed with me for one night.’
A Wedding
Anita Brookner
‘The bride and groom were there all the time, in the centre, as they should be. A good-looking couple. But lifeless, figures from stock.’
A Wooden Taste Is the Word for Dam a Wooden Taste Is the Word for Dam a Wooden Taste Is the Word For
Jesse Ball
‘My friends, what I mean is, this life is shallow like a plate. It goes no further.’
A/S/L
Emma Cline
‘It was the afternoons that did it, three o’clock like a kind of death knell, the house seeming too still, too many hours of sunlight left in the day. How had Thora even started going to the chat rooms?’
Abingdon Square
André Aciman
‘Your problem is not that you misread signs; it’s that you see them everywhere.’