‘Even as we seek to relegate stories of witches, wonders and monsters to an absurd and irrational past, we’re drawn to retelling and retelling them.’
Helena C. Aeberli on Mary Toft, TikTok and ‘micro-histories’.
Essay | Staying Mute by Sara Ahmad
‘If a Brazilian electrician, pursued by the police as a result of a series of blunders, can be shot in cold blood in front of the British public – how thin is the membrane separating victim and terrorist?’
Sarah Ahmad on the 7/7 bombings, 20 years on.
Fiction | Duchess by Gráinne O’Hare
‘When I passed the baby to her to hold, she did so with the bored detachment of a taxi driver holding a name card at an airport.’
New short fiction by Gráinne O’Hare.
Essay | Exile City by Kasra Lang
‘If the city makes no offers of belonging, it makes no demands either, unlike in America, which insists on a daily pledge of allegiance. In that sense London is the exile city par excellence.’
Kasra Lang’s essay on Joseph Conrad and Hisham Matar.