‘I like to think now that he knew how much I liked him, from the beginning, and that we were both equal participants in the ritual.’
Lagos in June is steamy. But that Thursday afternoon at the Champion newspaper office, I did not notice how difficult it was to breathe or how the air was like a hot, moist blanket. I swaggered and smiled, too full of a sense of accomplishment. I had just had my collection of watery poetry published…
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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.
‘Kamara had always resented the glamour of half-castes.’
‘The Master was a little crazy; he had spent too many years reading books overseas’
‘Chinechelum said little as her mother drove her to the airport.’
‘His accent was what the British called posh, the kind some rich Nigerians tried to mimic and ended up sounding unintentionally funny.’
‘Every time I tried to write more, it turned out to be a fruitless endeavor – I felt like I was trapped in a sealed room with no windows.’
Fiction by Yu Hua, translated by Michael Berry.
‘Whenever people ask me about travel I always suspect they are buttonholing me, eager to relate amazing adventures of their own’.
