With love and squalor
Anna Maria Ortese’s Evening Descends Upon the Hills is a book that, Atlas-like, seems to bear on its shoulders the weight of the most overwhelming human sorrow – but also the burden of humanity’s “small, wretched acts of violence, an abyss of voices and events, tiny terrible gestures”, the unspeakable social stains and realities to...
The masterful Margarita
From the moment I began reading them, I loved everything about the two novellas and story collection that comprise Margarita García Robayo’s Fish Soup. I found the author’s voice incredibly compelling and felt an instant connection. I could relate to the detachment, the darkness juxtaposed with understated humour, the sense of wanting to get away,...
Magic in the mists
Land of Smoke is the first English translation, by Jessica Sequeira, of a work by my mother, the recently rediscovered Argentinian writer Sara Gallardo. A story collection originally published in 1977, it is a haunting cornucopia of the strangest fare Southern South America can possibly offer: Andean Sasquatches breeding hybrids with Basque deserters, a stubborn...
A secret
There was a young lady who had a spare head. She lived in Comodoro Rivadavia. Maybe because of the constant wind, or the monotony of limited society, she began to long for variety. The first step, as we said, was a replacement head. Since she had Armenian features, she chose blonde. Every fondness either grows...
The life of art
My friend and I went walking the dog in the cemetery. It was a Melbourne autumn: mild breezes, soft air, gentle sun. The dog trotted in front of us between the graves. I had a pair of scissors in my pocket in case we came across a rose bush on a forgotten tomb. “I don’t...
The hair clasp
We went swimming, my daughter and I. She was twenty and a good swimmer. I didn’t need to keep an eye on her. I read on the beach while she went into the sea. From time to time, I lifted my eyes from my book and looked at her. She would smile and raise an...
Bright white hearts
“The sky is falling!” I cried. “It’s falling fast!” “Where?”’ “It’s falling into the ocean.” And everyone watched as the sun sank into the sea, and the moon laughed from the clouds, and the people cried until salt water came up to their chins. “The water wants our words,” they said. “It can’t have them!”...
A happy nation
I don’t believe this is an emergency for Great Britain, officer. It’s just a crisis, you know, a little crisis. See, in an emergency, you call the ambulance. You call the police. But a political crisis is different. It’s just an inconvenience. So you can relax, really. Fully. Entirely. Relax. You can even fall sleep....
“Don’t kill me, I beg you. This is my tree.”
He woke up and , before the last vestiges of the nightmare faded, made up his mind. He’d take him out to the forest and finish the matter off. Fifteen years ago, before he’d shot him, he’d heard him say, “Don’t kill me, I beg you. This is my tree.” Those words had stayed with...
What to do when you can’t do anything
The consultant is still talking, fingertips poised on his desk as if he is about to play a concerto. Unsettling minor-key melodies fill the room, yet I feel nothing while I weep. Palliative is a pretty word. It masks a horror that should not wrap its spindly legs around my three-year-old. A greying moustache hangs...
Adventures of the imagination
Teaching creative writing is a pain in the ass. You bust a gut all year to put on thoughtful classes, to challenge, coax, and inspire the best work, you read reams and reams and reams of work in progress and then a few flinty, original pieces which give you hope, only to be met by...
The chosen vessel
She laid the stick and her baby on the grass while she untied the rope that tethered the calf. The length of the rope separated them. The cow was near the calf, and both were lying down. Feed along the creek was plentiful, and every day she found a fresh place to tether it, since...
