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The Sex Lives of African Girls

Taiye Selasi

‘She has the most genuine intentions of any woman out there.’

Hot-Air Balloons

Edwidge Danticat

‘We should all know that life and death are beyond our control.’

Zlatka

Maja Hrgović

‘I feel stupid in the wrinkled Mickey Mouse T-shirt.’

Harabella

Biram Mboob

‘He was conscious of something that had been growing in him as he walked here alone on Rimroad: some dark unreasoning paranoia.’

Here Comes the Sun | New Voices

Jaime Karnes

‘It’s more love than anyone has ever felt, I’m sure. I have an urge to donate it to children in Africa, or give it to the girl that works the kiosk in the mall. I’ll give it to a lonely continent.’

In Shinjuku

Yang Sok-il

‘I found myself sitting on a bench in Shinjuku Central Park, dazed like a junkie, when the wind plastered a sports tabloid to my legs and an advertisement jumped out at me‘

Rabbit Cycling

Madison Smartt Bell

‘He’d lost her first name in a burst of senseless coloured lights and he couldn’t tell her his own name because he didn’t know it.’

Go, Japanese!

Kyoko Nakajima

‘On the boat none of them will know who will meet them where they go. This is the world, they say to themselves. There is no need to worry. And this part is true, as worry functions were never built in.’

A Mason’s Hand | New Voices

Ali Akbar Natiq

‘Haji sahib, these kids are beyond me. I can’t teach them any more. Please make some other arrangement.’

Come, Japanese!

Julie Otsuka

‘On the boat we each had to make choices.’

Beach

Roberto Bolaño

‘I said to myself that maybe he wasn’t about to die.’

Last Man in Tower

Aravind Adiga

‘Perhaps that calm was all he had ever had’

James

Madeleine Thien

‘You can follow the trail but you can’t know in which direction you are headed’

The Anniversary

Nami Mun

‘They were too tired to have affairs.’