‘The criminal language of detective fiction is subject to the same liability to backfire as crime itself.’
Of the contest represented in detective fiction between crime and detection, hiding and seeking, it may be asked: which side is taken by the language of the representation? Perhaps a case might be made that language plays accomplice to the criminal, whose secret it preserves virtually to the point o…
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‘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.
‘Corporate publishing is the channel through which literature happens to flow at this moment in history.’
Christian Lorentzen dissects the literary establishment.
Momtaza Mehri and Warsan Shire talk about nineties London, parentification and diasporic inheritances.
‘The self is the work of art. Criticism puts that self in the service of other art.’
The authors discuss the multiplicity of the self, the idea of necessity, and how to work with what you lack.
‘Several times I’ve wanted to title something one thing, but have realized or been persuaded it isn’t a good idea.’
