Vinicius Jatobá and his translator Jethro Soutar discuss the challenges of translating his story ‘Still Life’ the role of China in the story and the intimate bond between author and translator.
‘I want the poem to destroy time. / What are the ceremonies of forgetting?’
An elegy by Nick Laird for his father, Alastair Laird, who died in 2021 of Covid-19. Shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem.
‘In the place where I grew up there were horses, thighs moving like nudity under their fur’
From Amnion by Stephanie Sy-Quia, published by Granta Books and shortlisted for the Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection.
‘My brother and I hurried through sloppy postures of praise, quiet as the light pooling around us.’
A poem by Kaveh Akbar, from his shortlisted collection Pilgrim Bell, first published in Granta 156: Interiors.
‘I wanted to and then / Remembered why I want to never’
Poetry by Shane McCrae, shortlisted for Cain Named the Animal.
‘Would / the apple be concerned / if I said it was not an apple’
Poems by Padraig Regan, from Some Integrity, shortlisted for the Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection.
‘So that was betrayal: in a magical realm, assassins and elves were involved in a conspiracy to overthrow the king. Or something like that.’
‘You see that the only thing that seems to move in its atmosphere is dust suspended against a fine thread of sunlight, that time itself sleeps lazily on the stupefied clocks.’
‘You see the house and its time, the house and the house alone, though your secrets, your fears and silences still exist there, locked away behind the denseness of the closed doors’
‘How is it possible we lived in that same house? Although every house in that neighborhood looked more or less alike.’ A story by Kate Zambreno.
‘We live with the permanent sense of imminent disaster.’
Charif Majdalani on the situation in Beirut. Translated from the French by Ruth Diver.
Siobhán Mannion shares five things she’s reading, watching and thinking about right now.
