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Peter Truth
Charlotte Hobson
‘Petya Pravda's dead. He died forty days ago, as elongated and translucent as an icon.’
The Coincidence of the Arts
Martin Amis
‘Round about, a thousand conversations missed a beat, gulped, and then hungrily resumed.’
Destroyed
Hilary Mantel
‘What an awful death, I said to myself. Smirking, I said, what a destruction.’
A short story by Hilary Mantel.
We Are the Kings
Michel Houellebecq
‘Smoking cigarettes has become the only element of real freedom in my day-to-day existence.’
A Sentence of Love
Assia Djebar
‘I met Annie for the first time in 1995, in Algiers. A friend of my sister's, she came from Paris and stayed with me for one night.’
Fort-de-France
David Macey
‘In an hour or so, the bats will fly during a brief twilight. And then the tree frogs will begin to chirp in the dark ’
The Rat
Patrick Chamoiseau
‘Fort-de-France, at that time, had not yet declared war on rats. Along with the crabs, they inhabited the crumbled sidewalks and canals of the city. ’
Night in the Afternoon
Caroline Lamarche
‘A little entrance hall. A staircase. To the left of the staircase, a door with a window leading into the concierge's room.’
Don’t Forsake Me
Ivan Klíma
'Bára went to the church on the advice of her friend Ivana. She had been suffering from occasional bouts of depression', Ivan Klíma in 'Don't Forsake Me' in Granta 59: France: The Outsider.
Lover
Joyce Carol Oates
‘You won't know me, won't see my face. Unless you see my face. And then it will be too late.’
The Vulgar Soul
John Biguenet
‘She got skinny and became a clairvoyant. And she wasn't even a stigmatic.’
