Our summer issue has arrived and it’s pure poetry!
"When the other kids made fun of him for the holes in his jumper or not knowing who He-Man was, he just looked out the window towards home, the big house up the road and down the lane."
"It hurts to struggle, to reach for things that you might not yet be able to meet... When will I be enough? All I can do is keep writing, keep meeting my ideas and my words with an openness that I encourage in others and struggle to find in myself."
Louise Kennedy's mordant debut novel is visceral, powerful, and full of compassion.
"I couldn’t get out of bed, I couldn’t shower, I couldn’t call my friends. Everyone has had a time like this—when they look in the mirror and, sure enough, an unknown animal stares back."
In an oeuvre of funny and, at times, caustically angry books, 'The Trees' might be Percival Everett’s funniest and angriest yet.
"When the other kids made fun of him for the holes in his jumper or not knowing who He-Man was, he just looked out the window towards home, the big house up the road and down the lane."
"I couldn’t get out of bed, I couldn’t shower, I couldn’t call my friends. Everyone has had a time like this—when they look in the mirror and, sure enough, an unknown animal stares back."
Anam Zafar's translations of Najat Abed Alsamad's work offer shattering insights into everyday experiences of the war in Syria.
‘I sit in my van and let it idle for a while, allowing the gentle hum of the engine to settle me. I take several deep breaths in. I don’t know why this has unnerved me so much. It is such a silly meaningless thing.’
"His mother had a choice between keeping the monkey or having the baby. She told the story often, in company, with a roll of her eyes and a helpless grin, as if this was the sore spot, the branching crossroads where her life had gone wrong. "
'You talk and talk until you run out of breath and still when you get home there are things you wish you had said. Just once I would like to wake before myself and see what I am with my eyes closed.'
The most underpraised of the Irish newcomers, Young Skins is a fine collection dominated by the novella 'Calm With Horses', a bravura performance in which Barrett simply outwrites many of his peers with a chilling confidence that suggests there is far more beneath the surface than merely the viciously effective black humour. — Eileen Battersby, The Irish Times, 'Fiction of the Year'
6th May 2022
14th April 2022
"When the other kids made fun of him for the holes in his jumper or not knowing who He-Man was, he just looked out the window towards home, the big house up the road and down the lane."
"It hurts to struggle, to reach for things that you might not yet be able to meet... When will I be enough? All I can do is keep writing, keep meeting my ideas and my words with an openness that I encourage in others and struggle to find in myself."