‘I groaned inwardly when anybody mentioned Pather Panchali and my small part in it.’
The story of Satyajit Ray’s struggle to make one of the world’s best-loved films, Pather Panchali, is well known: his commitment, his lack of funds, the shooting that started and stopped, his belief that India could be depicted a new way, though he had never made a film before. He took his story…
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‘I think there should be a National Service of Hospitality. The best way to see the true face of humanity is to serve it a plate of chips.’
Camilla Grudova on bad-mannered customers.
‘Anyone who has ever worked night shifts will understand the vertiginous feeling that comes with staring down the day from the wrong end.’
A.K. Blakemore on working nights.
‘I was constantly reading job ads, trying to find my holy grail – a job I could stand to do, and someone foolish enough to hire me.’
Sandra Newman on learning how to play professional blackjack.
‘I loved being a receptionist. What I loved about it was playing the part of being a receptionist.’
Emily Berry on being a temporary office worker.
‘Every part of you would swell, including your eyeballs, and no matter how much water you drank, you were always dehydrated.’
Junot Díaz on working for a steel mill.
‘The opening day of the tour covered the Iveragh peninsula.’
A story by Noel O’Regan, author of Though the Bodies Fall.
‘Is there in fact a jostling for dominance between the art forms, some barely suppressed competitiveness?’
Adam Mars-Jones on music and ceremony.
‘She is well-behaved, as icons go, she toes the party line.’
Short fiction by the author of Our Wives Under the Sea.
‘The woman dies. She dies to provide a plot twist. She dies to develop the narrative. She dies for cathartic effect. She dies because no one could think of what else to do with her.’ Aoko Matsuda, translated from the Japanese by Polly Barton.
‘I grew up in the semi-tropical south, dotted by wet paddy fields, but I always wanted to go to the north.’
‘My address book is overpopulated, like a communal apartment during the post-war housing shortage.’
