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Introducing Daniel Galera

Alejandro Zambra

‘It’s hard to introduce Daniel Galera’s tale without resorting to adjectives that are more likely to arouse distrust than interest.’

Introducing Javier Arancibia Contreras

Andrés Barba

‘In this story, the troubled translator’s only interlocutor is, of course, a rat with human vices and traits.’

Six Brazilian Songs

Teju Cole

Teju Cole shares six favourite Brazilian songs.

Rachel Seiffert on Vanessa Barbara

Rachel Seiffert & Vanessa Barbara

‘A story that starts with a bereavement: already I’m drawn in.’

Anecdotes

Ann Beattie

‘Christine’s hair had begun to dry, and she looked different, with her hair down and her glasses on. Her earnestness made her look younger, and took me back to the bar where we’d sat in Pennsylvania years ago.’

Introducing Tatiana Salem Levy

A.L. Kennedy

Tatiana Salem Levy is introduced by previous double Best of Young British Novelist, A.L. Kennedy.

The Island of Hawkers

Tan Twan Eng

‘Suspecting (rightly) that you have been eating diluted, unauthentic versions of the real thing, you realize you have to go to Penang, the best place to eat street food in Malaysia.’

Grand Mal

Patrick Ryan

‘And this is what very few novels or movies have ever gotten right about amnesia: it’s not exotic; it’s horrific and sad-making. I was sad because I had no story.’

Religion Against Humanity

Wole Soyinka

‘The world should not continue to acquiesce in the brutal culture of extremism that demands the impossible.’

The Metaphoreign Body

Tod Wodicka

‘Finally, I was reduced to a piece of matter, solid and real and mute and totally absorbed inside a foreign system.’

A Dose of Winter Medicine

Kseniya Melnik

‘I looked at the carpet in her small living room. This is where she had fallen and lay for twenty-four hours before her younger sister, Auntie Tanya, had found her.’

Shackleton’s Medical Kit

Gavin Francis

‘Each box was like the distillation of all that we have learned as a species about our bodies and their infirmities, a time capsule of medicine at the start of the twenty-first century.’

Anthony Shadid

Cecil Hourani

‘Anthony’s life was a triumph and a tragedy. It was a tragedy which I believe he foresaw.’