I should not be here to tell this story.
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‘It's that simple: there is a day in my past, a day many years ago in Santiago de Chile, when I should have died and did not.’
I should not be here to tell this story.
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‘We meet at various points in the great swathes of the past that neither of us were alive to witness.’
Allen Bratton on a daytrip to a castle with his older boyfriend.
‘Listening to three white poets, whom I suspect are academics, talk about the state of poetry.’
Oluwaseun Olayiwola eavesdrops on an older generation.
‘I’d been dubious about his company at first.’
Sarah Moss on watching Shakespeare with her twelve-year-old son.
‘She didn’t trust us because, to her, tenants were like children.’
Kate Zambreno on negotiating with her older landlady.
‘A moment now swallowed in embarrassment, I asked a question only a young person might ask an older one.’
Lynne Tillman on trying to understand what makes a generation.
Ariel Dorfman is an Argentine-Chilean novelist and playwright. His books include Other Septembers, Heading South, Looking North, Many Americas and a novel, Burning City, written with his son Joaquin. His plays include Death and the Maiden, which received its London revival in the autumn of 2011.
More about the author →‘Chile, for all its imperfections and failures, found a way of responding to the terror inflicted on us (yes, us, we Chileans), a path of peace rather than war, a path of understanding rather than retribution.’
‘But it is not only external, physical problems that Chilean culture is facing. By suddenly being forced into the open, artists and intellectuals are now coming up against an internal dilemma.’
‘Unlike the other comic strips in the magazine, ‘The Adventures of Mampato’ was conceived, illustrated, and entirely produced in Chile.’
‘We decided then to tell each other exactly how a typical fuck played out in our marriages. We couldn’t believe we’d never done this before.’
Fiction by Miranda July.
‘What does that mean, vegan cheese? asks a lady who’d had no query about amuse-bouche.’
An extract from The Alternatives by Caoilinn Hughes.
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