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Explore Essays and memoir

Cormac James | Notes on Craft

Cormac James

‘My most recent writing lesson came from Elizabeth Strout, a few months ago. Pay attention, is all she taught me, and it was plenty.’

Court

Blake Morrison

‘One by one they’re led into the box. They swear their oath. They confirm their name, their employment, why they were where they say they were, what it was they saw.’

Africa Writes

Caitlin Pearson

The Royal African Society takes a look back at the history of the Africa Writes festival, their annual celebration of contemporary literature from Africa and the diaspora.

Ways of Looking

Lulah Ellender

‘He is like a mantling hawk, his heft and body spreading over his prey as he tears off pieces of her with his eyes.’ Lulah Ellender on the male gaze.

When Poets Write Novels

Caoilinn Hughes

Caoilinn Hughes on the ten best novels written by poets.

The Man Who Lived

Snigdha Poonam

Snigdha Poonam on how WhatsApp is being used to encourage mob violence in India.

Louise Bourgeois as I Knew Her

Jean Frémon

‘The portrait is built up of tiny strokes, one added upon another, like dashes of pencil.’ Translated from the French by Cole Swensen.

Four Syrian Borders: A Motorcycle Journey, 2007

Esa Aldegheri & Gavin Francis

‘The landscape, glimpsed through plumes of dust thrown up by trucks, grew drier, more hostile as it climbed away from the sea.’

Introduction

Sigrid Rausing

Sigrid Rausing introduces Granta 143: After the Fact.

Mother’s Death

Stephen Sharp

‘Last year father attacked me as a “wet radish”. This caused me to give up writing diary entries.’

Palmyra

Charles Glass & Don McCullin

‘ISIS’s second conquest of Palmyra astonished everyone, and fed the belief in a Syrian government conspiracy to assist ISIS.’

New Town Blues

Jason Cowley & Gus Palmer

‘They had believed they were coming to a new town. But, they said, Harlow wasn’t new: it looked old.’

Renderings

Edward Burtynsky & Anthony Doerr

‘Often when I stare into the alien circuitry of a Burtynsky picture, it takes me a while to figure out what has actually been photographed.’ Anthony Doerr introduces Edward Burtynsky’s photographs.

The Last Shopkeepers of London

David Flusfeder

‘It became a kind of mission to find contemporaries of theirs that weren’t closing down, establishments that have continued to flourish, or at least endure.’