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‘We have this space and we have permission to summon each other into it. Sibspace.’
Fiction by Ben Pester.
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‘The issue was the first of its kind. Trust me, it said. I know what I am talking about. These young writers are the future of literature. Watch. History will prove me right.’ – Bill Buford, Granta editor (1979-95)
‘Cover your nose and mouth, the order came, swift and useless; if they’d had their turbans they would have wound them around their faces but there were only the balaclavas.’
Fiction by Kamila Shamsie from the 2013 Best of Young British Novelists issue.
‘She felt exhausted, emptied out; she thought of the day that had passed – it was astonishing to her, that a single set of hours could contain so many separate states of violent feeling.’
Fiction by Sarah Waters from the 2003 Best of Young British Novelists issue.
‘This is the one thing I know from the minute I lift the receiver and slip that voice inside my ear: it will happen.’
Fiction by A.L. Kennedy from the 1993 Best of Young British Novelists issue.
‘As it was, my grandfather began helping me to paint without my having to ask him.’
Fiction by Kazuo Ishiguro from the 1983 Best of Young British Novelists issue.
Ben Pester’s debut short story collection Am I in the Right Place? was published in 2021 by Boiler House Press, and was long listed for the 2022 Edge Hill Prize. His work has appeared in the London Magazine, INQUE, Hotel, Five Dials and elsewhere. When not writing fiction, he is a technical writer. He lives with his family in North London.
More about the author →
‘Graham is telling the woman that he is Orientating you. The woman in the blue cardigan looks at you and nods very solemnly.’
A story from Ben Pester’s Am I in the Right Place, available now from Boiler House Press.
‘Is the act of complicating a perfectly nice daydream a craft?’
Ben Pester on the craft of imagination.
A trip on a commuter train takes a surreal turn in new fiction by Ben Pester.
‘She hit send and sighed as the email-whoosh came through her headphones. Theo was sitting at his desk less than six metres away.’
‘I was not a strong mayor. I was an email. I was a little bit high.’
A short story by Avigayl Sharp.
‘These are the stories and concerns of everyday people at the height of a time of great change, and perhaps the best work by one of Chicago's best-known sons.’
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