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Duty

Diana Evans

‘How do you love a monster when they are no longer monstrous?’

New fiction by Diana Evans.

Universal Mother

Momtaza Mehri

‘I turn to O’Connor’s music when I get tired of lying to myself. Her songs are allegorical free-falls. Spiritual chiaroscuros, even.’

Momtaza Mehri on Sinéad O’Connor.

Diane

Avigayl Sharp

‘I lied about my age and I lied about my location and I lied about being horny.’

Fiction by Avigayl Sharp.

Introduction

Thomas Meaney

‘There can be any number of significant others in a life. Some we know for a long time; others are meteoric: we may see them only once.’

The editor introduces the issue.

The Museum Guard

J.M. Coetzee

‘Do they strike people as a strange couple? He does not know, does not care.’

Fiction by J.M. Coetzee.

Private View

Sophie Collins

‘Being recognised as part of a couple thrilled me; I felt legitimised. John had a life, a full life.’

Fiction by Sophie Collins.

Two Poems

Zoë Hitzig

‘just like that, I’m just your state, state of play’

Poetry by Zoë Hitzig.

Embrace

Kevin Brazil

‘Love is a concept about which I have long been very sceptical. I have seen the damage that can be done, and can be justified, in the name of love.’

Fiction by Kevin Brazil.

New Kindness Hatching

Jesse Glazzard & Anthony Vahni Capildeo

‘The invisible artist who invites us to stand beside him is clearly among friends; being kind, being of a kind; witnessing with-ness.’

Jesse Glazzard photographs Camp Trans, with an introduction by Anthony Vahni Capildeo.

The Messiah of Cadoxton

Susan Pedersen

‘The script of script production rather followed the script of sex: it was intimate, exciting, boundary-crossing, and left the participants changed.’

Susan Pedersen on paranormal love in the Balfour family.

Three Mukhatabat

Najwan Darwish

‘He said to me: / Love led me / to pity my own self, / to grieve it / with a vertical grief.’

Poetry by Najwan Darwish. Translated from the Arabic by Kareem James Abu-Zeid.

A Woman I Once Knew

Rosalind Fox Solomon & Lynne Tillman

‘These are not gentle, passive female bodies. They are strong women who strike poses that show aggression.’

Lynne Tillman introduces Rosalind Fox Solomon’s self-portraits.

A Journey to Ayodhya

Snigdha Poonam

‘Ask anyone in Ayodhya, and they will say the city’s Hindu–Muslim harmony can withstand any test.’

Snigdha Poonam on the construction of a Hindu temple on the ruins of a mosque in Utter Pradesh.

Bitter North

Alexandra Tanner

‘Eight years in, Hal felt like another her, somehow.’

Fiction by Alexandra Tanner.