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Explore Essays and memoir

All Hail the Holy Bone

Maggie O’Farrell

‘It is part angel, part lepidopteran, part Rorschach inkblot.’

The Canvas Bag

Inigo Thomas

‘It was given to her by her Japanese captors after the Fall of Singapore on 15 February 1942 to pack the few possessions she was allowed to take with her to prison.’

I Will Never See the World Again

Ahmet Altan

‘I was in a cage because a man had eaten an apple.’ Translated from the Turkish by Yasemin Çongar.

Terminology

Callie Gardner

‘In Iris, they speak a language with a hundred pronouns.’

Dividing Lines

Jack Losh

Jack Losh reports from rebel-held Bria in the Central African Republic, where fighting has forced thousands into a displacement camp.

Mariana Enríquez | Notes on Craft

Mariana Enriquez

‘I found a way to speak: the women talked for me’ Translated by Josie Mitchell.

Bohemian Rhapsody in Five Acts

Tiffany Murray

Tiffany Murray on living with Freddie Mercury as a child.

Ali Fitzgerald | Notes on Craft

Ali Fitzgerald

Notes on crafting a graphic memoir from Ali Fitzgerald.

On Rihanna

Alexia Arthurs

‘Rihanna had cut her hair short, and she was no longer being marketed as the Caribbean Beyoncé.’

I’m Black So You Don’t Have to Be

Colin Grant

'Can the black author really write out of her or his colour? In writing about black characters can they ever escape race?' Colin Grant looks at the evolution of racial politics.

Terrors

Kiese Laymon

An excerpt from Heavy: An American Memoir by Kiese Laymon

Nine Pints

Rose George

‘My blood is on its way to becoming something that even when given for free can be brokered and sold like ingots or wheat.’

Writing Like Degas Paints

Sulaiman Addonia

Sulaiman Addonia on how Edgar Degas’s nude portraits inspired his latest novel, Silence Is My Mother Tongue.

Lucia Berlin Writes Home

Nina Ellis

Nina Ellis on the life and writing of Lucia Berlin. ‘If Berlin's collections were houses, their hallways would change direction without warning, and their rooms would be bright and dark at the same time.’