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Cairo

David Grossman

‘Cairo empties you instantly, leaving only eyes and ears and nose.’

Switzerland Without an Army?

Max Frisch

‘Why should Switzerland of all places have no army? It costs billions and billions, but we can afford it.’

Some are Born to Sweet Delight

Nadine Gordimer

‘She stopped where she was; sourness was in her mouth and nose, oozing towards the foreign stranger, she mustn’t go a step nearer.’

The Ramada Inn at Shiloh

Allan Gurganus

‘I think Lincoln's face predicted the twentieth century.’

War Memories

Peregrine Hodson

‘I said I thought it was difficult to judge the actions of war in peace because war and peace are different worlds.’

An Egyptian in Baghdad

Amitav Ghosh

‘It was exactly three weeks since Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait, and miraculously, Abu-Ali, the old shopkeeper, was on his feet.’

In Soweto

Jeremy Harding

‘Now, in the first light of the liberation, Soweto was opaque and murderous.’

The Savage Notebook

Richard Holmes

‘Richard Savage remains a shadowy figure until the moment of his arrest for murder, in a back alley near Charing Cross, in November 1727.’

New York City: Crash Course

Elizabeth Hardwick

‘A spectacular warehouse this city is; folk from anywhere.’

Blessed Assurance

Allan Gurganus

‘I sold funeral insurance to North Carolina black people.’

The Invasion of Panama

Martha Gellhorn

‘He turned his frantic smile and his sorrowful eyes to me, making sure I understood. “Nothing like this ever happened in Panama. Never.”’

A House in the Country

Romesh Gunesekera

‘The nights had always been noisy: frogs, drums, bottles, dogs barking at the moon.’

The General

Isabel Hilton

‘The kitchen telephone would ring and it would be Gustavo Stroessner, the General's son, bellowing in that strange accent down a fuzzy line from Brazil, like an unruly fictional character nagging for a larger part in the plot.’

On the Road to Timișoara

Christopher Hitchens

‘“Have you heard?“ said Ferenc, “Ceaușescu has been assassinated.”’