Explore Essays and memoir
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Introduction
Sigrid Rausing
‘I came to the magazine in 2005 and took over the editorship in 2013.’
Sigrid Rausing introduces her last issue.
Reports from the Front: Winter 2023
Peter Englund
‘I repeat: the landscape of war is an acoustic landscape.’
Peter Englund on the war in Ukraine, translated from the Swedish by Sigrid Rausing.
Cairo Song
Wiam El-Tamami
‘I see this everywhere. The creativity, resourcefulness and incredible talent for improvisation in Egypt.’
Wiam El-Tamami on returning to Cairo.
Plainsong
Suzie Howell & A. K. Blakemore
‘Postures of graceful receptivity, or surrender. How do we tell the difference?’
A.K. Blakemore introduces Suzie Howell’s photographs.
The Index of Porosity
Adam Mars-Jones
‘Is there in fact a jostling for dominance between the art forms, some barely suppressed competitiveness?’
Adam Mars-Jones on music and ceremony.
One Day It Will all Make Sense
Tabitha Lasley
‘It occurs to me then that he has not invited me for dinner, but my alter ego from the page.’
Tabitha Lasley on writing and dating.
A Report on Music in Ukraine
Ed Vulliamy
‘Nights at the opera in Ukraine – where everything, including every kind of music, has changed.’
Ed Vulliamy on music in Ukraine.
Journal Excerpts 1997–1999
Lydia Davis
‘gormandizing, gluttonous, lickerish, guttling’
Excerpts from Lydia Davis’s diary.
Once a Dancer
Diana Evans
‘What happens to a dancer when they stop dancing?’
Diana Evans on dancing and writing.
Soundscapes of Phnom Penh
Anjan Sundaram
‘From my bronze-painted balcony, I chronicled the sounds of Phnom Penh’s private industry.’
Anjan Sundaram on the sound of corruption in Cambodia.
The Soundscape of War
Ada Wordsworth
‘Ordinary sounds change their meaning in the context of war when the reverberations of sound can mean death.’
Ada Wordsworth on silence, noise and the war in Ukraine.
Endurance
Maartje Scheltens
‘Four Organs allows us to step out of time and briefly inhabit infinity.’
Maartje Scheltens on Steve Reich, repetition and discomfort.
