Martin Amis

‘You’ve got your catflap, I’ve got my guy.’

Diane Cook

‘Marni on Mack. Mack in Marni. A little Mack and Marni. My head rushes. I want to watch, hear the sounds.’

Marie-Helene Bertino

‘Flute-like, gauze-filled, late-afternoon sunshine. Rainbow bracelets on the carpet. They use their tongues to wet their lips. Girls.’

Josh Weil

‘When he opened his eyes, she was looking out at the rooster, the sun-blasted concrete, the railing thinned to brittle by the brightness.’

Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

‘We are not burying one of us in snow.’

Aoko Matsuda

‘‘Let’s become monsters together,’ she said, looking straight into my eyes.’

Mitsuyo Kakuta

‘I was gazing into my empty bowl and realizing how little time it takes to eat when you’re not carrying on a conversation.’

Yoko Ogawa

Keiichiro Hirano

‘It was during this period that I got to know K, one of the local mailmen.’

Yuten Sawanishi

‘The vagina was the first part of her mother’s body that turned to sugar.’

Sayaka Murata

‘Frequency of sex since marriage: zero.’

Sayaka Murata on a sexless marriage and the ‘Clean Breeder’ technique for pleasureless reproduction.

Issue 127

Toshiki Okada

‘If I had known she were heading for Tokyo then, and if I had known she thought of Tokyo as a city of zombies, I would have wanted to know, of course, whether she saw me that way, too.’

Issue 127

David Mitchell

‘But what if he answers in Martian? I’ll die.’

Issue 127

Kyoko Nakajima

It was something Takashi remembered but Masaru had forgotten.