Somehow everything built in Russia looks as if it has been made by hand. (Ian Frazier, Travels in Siberia) If only. As if. What kind of hand? Do you know anything about commonplace dachas, summerhouses of Russian ordinary citizens in that part of the world? The dacha tradition goes back to Tsarist Russia, when it Read More
“They’re like worms. What kind of worms? Like worms, all over.” Two voices present themselves: one in question, one in answer; a child and a mother, yet sharing no relation. The subject of conversation is unclear, the situation likewise. We know only a sense of unease. As the dialogue unfolds, the child, David, guides the Read More
Shortlisted for The Man Booker International Prize of 2017, A Horse Walks Into A Bar is about the power of words—their purpose in a world that prioritizes only pretences. David Grossman’s combination of daring, controversial dialogue and compelling, desperate characters carries reader curiosity from introduction to denouement. It is a novel that demands attentiveness and Read More
In one episode of the FX drama series, Prison Break, the character, Sara, a physician, sits in a fold-up chair at a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. Sara is a doctor with access to opiates, which she mainlines. As I watch Sara introduce herself in that 12-step program, reciting that standard salutation, a parallel line comes to Read More
You’re maneuvered around and then lifted out of your mother. You’re covered, like all babies, in a white waxy film called vernix. You’re the last of your mother’s eight babies, the only one to be born via c-section, the only one who causes your mother to have the scar, a thick pink ribbon that stretches Read More
Five ways of being a painting. Only two of them common. — Reflecting on his childhood in Berlin at the turn of the century, Walter Benjamin wrote that he feared being exiled in things. He often felt trapped in objects that absorbed his being. No longer a boy, he was blue and white Chinese porcelain, Read More
ONE Years ago, when my wife and I were courting and in college, we had a little ditty we sang from time to time, after Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof. “If I were a rich man … I wouldn’t shop at Pantry Pride.”… Pantry Pride was the supermarket in Haledon, New Jersey, my girlfriend’s Read More
With vivid illustrations, poignant metaphors, and poetic nuances, Heather O’ Neill’s The Lonely Hearts Hotel entices its readers with a narrative about outcast characters seeking to entertain New York City with “The Snowflake Icicle Extravaganza” on their search for stardom. The Lonely Hearts Hotel focuses on the interconnecting themes of fate and tragedy, hope and Read More
(Ed- Prior to publishing excerpts from the 2017 Notting Hill Editions Essay prize shortlist, we asked the marvellous essayist Chris Arthur to write a piece on the essay within the academy… Read & let us know what you think by leaving your comments below.) Students don’t believe me when I say they’ve never written an Read More
If one reads Linda Grant’s The Dark Circle, one may be left feeling unfulfilled; being presented with a remote plot about a remote disease that fails to tug on the heart strings or incite anger, as one would probably expect. So, this is the reason that I request you don’t merely read this novel: engage Read More