‘I remember looking around me with approval that first night, and today, for all the changes which have transformed the world around it, Mrs Kawakamu's remains as pleasing as ever.’
I have never at any point in my life been very aware of my own social standing, and even now I am often surprised afresh when some event, or something someone may say, reminds me of the rather high esteem in which I am held. Just the other evening for instance I was down in our old pleasure district…
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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.
‘As it was, my grandfather began helping me to paint without my having to ask him.’
The letter that accompanied Ishiguro’s first submission to Granta.
‘How does a writer transform a familiar object or character into an instrument of horror?’
Helen Macdonald, Sin Blaché and Isabel Waidner on defamiliarisation, multiple dimensions and constructing characters
‘It is pleasant – to me, confusingly so.’
Michael Hofmann on returning to Germany.
‘At midnight on our third and final date / I stepped inside her Edwardian conversion / to find a stripped-pine, bookless space.’
