Sana Krasikov and Viv Groskop discuss the Soviet experience, the rise of mass cynicism and the politics of Russia and the US today.
Viv Groskop interviews Sana Krasikov about her novel The Patriots. They discuss the Soviet and post-Soviet experience, the rise of mass cynicism and the parallels between the politics of Russia and America today.
‘Russian officials are on the one hand masterminding the takeover of Ukraine, and on the other writing dissident lyrics for rock bands. To them they can do it all. They are above consistency.’ – Sana Krasikov.
‘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.
‘Breaking your family’s heart was the price you paid for rescuing your own.’
‘I wonder if the only way to grasp what is terrifying and unimaginable for those of us who haven’t experienced it is to feel around the contours of inescapability, the boundary of its negative space.’
‘The world is teeming with demons who are always looking for ways to screw with your good fortune.’
‘It seemed perfectly normal for middle-class writers to tell the stories of the underclass. But the presumed creator of literature has been changing.’
Granta interviews Wu Qi.
‘She is thorough in a way that is off putting to people. It makes for a good secretary, not a good conversationalist.’
Fiction by Madeline Cash.
‘Usually taciturn and self-absorbed, on that day Eddie bombarded the teachers with witticisms and cheeky, caustic remarks, for which the French mistress, shaken, sent him out of the classroom.’
