Photograph courtesy of the authors
‘Four Syrian Borders’ is product of a joint collaboration between Granta and the International Literary Showcase, an initiative supported by Writers’ Centre Norwich, the British Council and Arts Council England.
‘The landscape, glimpsed through plumes of dust thrown up by trucks, grew drier, more hostile as it climbed away from the sea.’
Photograph courtesy of the authors
‘Four Syrian Borders’ is product of a joint collaboration between Granta and the International Literary Showcase, an initiative supported by Writers’ Centre Norwich, the British Council and Arts Council England.
‘The anglophone world, we have to infer, has run out of words for its own feelings.’
Daisy Hildyard on the wisdom of scarecrows.
‘What is the read receipt for?’
Lillian Fishman on texting, power and the ethics of leaving a friend on read.
‘Like pretty much everyone who uses the internet, I have seen many terrible things that I did not search for and that I cannot unsee.’
Rosanna McLaughlin on what the internet thinks she wants.
‘I have a pathological addiction to the internet, which I indulge with the excuse of making art. It rarely translates to anything good and mostly leaves me overstimulated and afraid.’
Paul Dalla Rosa on excess and the internet.
‘rumors of bees on speedwell, / no oxidative stress just / effortless pollination’
Two poems by Sylvia Legris.
Esa Aldegheri is an academic and activist working in the field of migration and integration. She speaks five languages, is a researcher at the University of Glasgow and Chair of Edinburgh City of Sanctuary. @aldeghesa
More about the author →Gavin Francis is a physician in Edinburgh and the award-winning author of Empire Antarctica, Adventures in Human Being and Shapeshifters. He's a regular contributor to the Guardian, LRB and the New York Review of Books. www.gavinfrancis.com @gavinfranc
More about the author →
‘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.
‘I lied about my age and I lied about my location and I lied about being horny.’
Fiction by Avigayl Sharp.
‘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.
‘Do they strike people as a strange couple? He does not know, does not care.’
Fiction by J.M. Coetzee.
‘Being recognised as part of a couple thrilled me; I felt legitimised. John had a life, a full life.’
Fiction by Sophie Collins.
‘The dreams were packed together like coloured soap bubbles.’
Short fiction by Mazen Maarouf, translated from the Arabic by Jonathan Wright.
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