Alycia Pirmohamed

‘I encounter the first woman / by encountering my own face in the river. / Two bodies alike, one drenched / in inheritance.’ Two poems by Alycia Pirmohamed

Sayaka Murata

An excerpt from Earthlings, translated from the Japanese by Ginny Tapley Takemori.

Sara Freeman

Sara Freeman, author of Tides, on writing while seeing the wood for the trees.

Claudia Durastanti

‘My life as a writer depends on irony and metaphor, and my parents are horrified and alienated by both.’

Translated from the Italian by Elizabeth Harris.

Anna Della Subin

An excerpt from Anna Della Subin’s Accidental Gods.

Will Alexander & James Goodwin

‘I may have mentioned this at a prior time but there are around 250,000 words in the English language, yet within the utilitarian scale they seem consumed according to advertising and profit.’

Eleanor Catton

Alex Hyde

‘The scrubbing of floors or rugs. People down on their knees, “tamping” the stain.’ Alex Hyde on the everyday gestures that make a life.

Elaine L. Wang

Elaine L. Wang on the best book of 1930: The Man Without Qualities.

Larissa Pham

‘Nine years after publication, Erdrich’s text still feels timely, even urgent.’

Larissa Pham’s best book of 2012.

Emmanuel Iduma

‘In art he finds the language with which to exchange mourning for some measure of equanimity.’

Emmanuel Iduma’s best book of 2019.