‘At the time that I was reading it and falling in love with it, I wasn’t thinking, “Oh, I want to be a translator.” But that book started my love affair with translated literature as a reader.’
Terry Craven talks to Megan McDowell, one of the judge’s for this year’s Desperate Literature Short Story Prize.
‘For me, it’s a beautiful experience to be able to feel the materials with my hands while working.’
We spoke to Marcellina Akpojotor about her forthcoming show, Joy of more Worlds, at Rele Gallery.
‘The demands of the male observer are hidden, his words never breaking through from the silent ubiquity of their god complex.’
Elliot C. Mason reviews Rachael Allen’s God Complex.
‘All at once, it felt nihilistic and misguided. I had been on this extended fast, but it was devoted to absent men and not any real god. As such, there had been no revelation or resolution, no peace.’
Christiana Spens on Lent.
‘When we confess, we spit something out, something previously secret and slippery, something summoned up from deep inside.’
Jennifer Jasmine White reviews 52 Monologues at the Soho Theatre.
‘She was so very, very fortunate, yes, she was.’
New fiction by Jane Messer.
‘For several long minutes, nothing changed. We seemed to be opposite and equal forces.’
New fiction by Laura Shaine Cunningham.
‘I had to find my own distance from the material I was writing, particularly because it was so close to my own experience. In the early stages of composition, I was almost bogged down by it. I didn’t know how to step back.’
Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year shortlistee Michael Magee on his debut novel, Close to Home.
‘Then I told him he looked like a lop-sided Trent Reznor and didn’t he want to kiss me? This is a kind of flirting. This has never not worked.’
Fiction by Sarah Fletcher.
‘Whilst his subjects range widely, Hardy’s style is constant. Even in the theatre of war, he managed to keep his frame still.’
Henry Roberts reviews Bert Hardy: Photojournalism in War at the Photographers’ Gallery.
‘Then as I was writing I was drawing this Exodus-like pillar of cloud, this memory of my brother, out of the dreamscape, out of the fog of the morning.’
Thomas Gardner on the new Daunt Books Publishing edition of his collection, Poverty Creek Journal.
‘As an artist, I’m an observer. My role is to alert and call to attention, not write policy. My sensibility is such that I experience the world intensely and recreate it in a visual form. But to try and answer this impossible question, one of such complexity, rooted in history and human avarice, a plan of correction would take time, which we don’t have, and a concerted effort, which we don’t have.’
Charlotte Hopkins Hall on her forthcoming show at Gallery 46.
‘“It’s your birthday tomorrow,” said my mother. “Did you know the Jesuits say ‘Give me a child before the age of seven and he’ll be mine forever?’” “Who are the Jesuits?” “Priests.” “Oh.” She tousled my hair. “Thank god you’ve met none.”’
New fiction by Jago Rackham.
‘A lot of horror films trade in Christian symbols and ideas – demons, upside down crucifixes and so on. Jewish folklore is just as stuffed with goblins and witches and ghosts – all manner of fun things to play around with. So why shouldn’t they play a part in my modern Jewish novel?’
Toby Lloyd on his debut novel, Fervour.
‘Of justices, karma is the most poetic— / a magistrate who makes us wear / our wrongs: albatrosses, ugly charms.’
New poetry by Jane Zwart.
‘Both contemporary pieces seek to build on this revolutionary choreography rather than imitate it perfectly, yet both acknowledge that Nijinska’s work marked key developments in the world of choreography, bridging the gap between one century and the next in the world of classical dance. So how did it come to pass that now she is known primarily as a keeper of her brother’s career?’
Esmee Wright on Bronislava Nijinska.
‘I mean something closer to: am I a good person? Am I sincere and devout to those things in my life that I ought to be?’
New fiction by Benjamin George Coles.
‘I feed the birds / before I feed myself.’
New poetry by Luciana Francis.
‘The few days turned to weeks and years and it was a decade before we spoke about the future, a conversation focused on the past.’
New fiction by Gary Finnegan.
‘Dad drinks a pint of Newcastle Brown
feet sticking to the floor,
the room thick with fag smoke.
Dad 70’s cool, beard & sideburns & swagger.’
New poetry by Rachel Burns.
‘You grow up in poverty. You are told you are lucky, and that luck is why you are the only child in the family who gets an education. You have a natural sense for numbers, and feel that luck is a question of numbers. It is a question of the number of years separating you and your siblings from the source of luck.’
New fiction by Lilia Salammbô Fetini.
‘everything is muddled, everything is metaphor.’
New poetry by Tim Relf.
Currently showing at the Southbank Centre’s When Forms Come Alive exhibition, we spoke to Eva Fàbregas about her sculptural installations, form, and desire.
Currently showing at Gallery 46, we spoke to David Tucker about his fearless paintings and sculptures.
