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Gifted
Segun Afolabi
‘The boys' eyes grazed the carpet and then each other guiltily. The youngest tried not to smile with shame.’
Beethoven Was One Sixteenth Black
Nadine Gordimer
‘Once there were blacks wanting to be white. Now there are whites wanting to be black.’
The Witch’s Dog
Helon Habila
‘The old witch, Nana Mudo, lived alone with her dog on the other side of the grove.’
The Visiting Child
Karen E. Bender
‘Jane needed a stranger in the kitchen, someone to speak because she could not.’
The Great Wall
Ismail Kadare
‘What China loses by the sword it retakes by silk.’
A short story by Ismail Kadare, translated by David Bellos.
White Sands
Geoff Dyer
‘Now that we were out of danger it seemed possible that there had never been any danger.’
The Ship at Anchor
Frederic Tuten
‘Those words made me wonder why I ever wanted to be an artist, why I ever wanted to live, though I never thought I wanted to die.’
Buckets of Blood
Tessa Hadley
‘I’m miscarrying a pregnancy, she said, when the spasm seemed to have passed.—It’s a fine mess.’
The Grief of Strangers
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
‘Chinechelum said little as her mother drove her to the airport.’
Lily
Ian McEwan
‘He'll be ruthless with himself in his pursuit of boundless health to avoid his mother's fate: Mental death.’