Salvador Espriu

‘For hidden though they may be – and it is incontrovertible that they are – sooner or later the testicles will have to appear.’

Teju Cole

‘I heard faint noises, the occasional car going down another street, a voice lightly thrown from its unseen body, the hum of distant machines, and the sound of my own breathing as I put one foot in.’

Michael Salu

Annia Ciezadlo

‘Whenever there’s the threat of violence, people rush to the bakery for bread, of course, but also, I suspect, for reassurance.’

Michael Robinson-Chavez

‘It was Anthony Shadid at his best, consumed by the stories of Iraq in the wake of the US led invasion and writing the most beautiful and intimate account of what followed.’

Cynan Jones

‘It’s quite a phone call to get: ‘Will you go to Brazil for us?’’

Héctor Abad Faciolince

‘However, there are countries with an almost secret culinary culture, unknown to the immense majority of the world.’

Naomi Alderman

‘When we find results that seem to make no sense, we should not be surprised or alarmed.’

Vanessa Barbara, Daniel Galera & Chico Mattoso

Vanessa Barbara, Daniel Galera and Chico Mattoso share three essential works by Brazilian authors.

Simon Armitage & Ted Hughes

An unpublished letter by Ted Hughes, introduced by Simon Armitage. ‘It’s reassuring to see a spelling mistake (‘style’ for stile), and I love the maps.’

Evie Wyld

‘Peckham is the place of my adolescence, my first cobbled together attempts at dressing myself from the charity shops on Rye Lane.’

Michael Symmons Roberts

‘The rich, tomato red that decorated most of my bedroom – curtains, lampshade, bedspread – and the pale, rinsed-out blue like a milky north-west sky that represented the other side.’