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All articles filed in personal essays

personal essaysMarch 2, 2021

Working Masks

Kikuko Tsumura on making masks work. Translated by Polly Barton.

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personal essaysFebruary 26, 2021

Memories of the Fires

El Salvador’s Claudia Hernández on war, women, and burning. Translated by Julia Sanches.

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personal essaysFebruary 9, 2021

For Uncle Milton

Robert Jones, Jr. on discovering he was not the only Black, queer member of his family.

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personal essaysDecember 22, 2020January 28, 2021

For the Stories, or for the Visa Delays?

Nayrouz Qarmout writes about Edinburgh, Gaza, short stories, and packing her bag.

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personal essays poetryOctober 20, 2020November 12, 2020

Why I Wrote ‘England Street’

Read Jay Bernard’s ‘England Street (Reggae fi Linton)’, commissioned to celebrate Linton Kwesi Johnson winning the 2020 PEN Pinter Prize. Featuring a specially commissioned introduction to the poem from Jay.

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personal essaysOctober 13, 2020January 1, 2021

A Dossier of Hate

Priyamavada Gopal writes on her experience of online hatred, and calls for an end to a politics of hate.

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personal essaysOctober 7, 2020November 12, 2020

Translating Every Day: The Importance and Impossibility of Decolonising Translation

Kavita Bhanot writes on mother-tongue shame, translating across generations, and decolonising translation.

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personal essaysSeptember 18, 2020October 19, 2020

When an Hour Stretched into A Day

Tsitsi Dangarembga, shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize, writes on demonstrating, writing, and being arrested.

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personal essaysSeptember 9, 2020January 1, 2021

Another Unknown Person Ringing at My Door: A Statement from Svetlana Alexievich

A statement from Svetlana Alexievich, Nobel Laureate and Chair of Belarusian PEN.

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personal essaysSeptember 1, 2020September 17, 2020

Hope in a Bottle of Honey

Kurdish writer Nurcan Baysal responds to a letter from Nedim Türfent.

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personal essaysAugust 25, 2020September 17, 2020

Translating Fascisms

Alex Valente on translating fascism between Italy, the UK and the US.

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personal essaysAugust 4, 2020September 1, 2020

Black Deaths Matter: About My Father

Patrice Lawrence writes about her father, Windrush, and death.

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personal essaysJuly 28, 2020August 25, 2020

Storms

Barbadian speculative fiction writer Karen Lord writes before and after a storm.

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personal essaysJuly 21, 2020August 25, 2020

Some Place to Call Home

Yvonne Battle-Felton on listening, fear, and home.

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personal essaysJuly 17, 2020July 31, 2020

After Saartjie: The Persistence of Prejudice

Dzifa Benson writes on contemporary and historical perceptions of black women’s bodies

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personal essaysJune 9, 2020June 27, 2020

Disturbing the Comfortable and Comforting the Disturbed

Andrzej Tichý writes on music and migrant experience

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personal essaysMay 19, 2020June 27, 2020

This Is Not an Arthur Koestler Novel – This Is Turkey

Can Bahadır Yüce writes on Turkey’s response to coronavirus, and calls for the release of at-risk political prisoners

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personal essaysApril 14, 2020May 13, 2020

Zoonotic

South African writer Henrietta Rose-Innes writes on lockdown in Cape Town, and spider bites.

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personal essaysApril 7, 2020May 13, 2020

Plague Diary: A Week

Three days from a week of Portuguese writer Gonçalo M. Tavares’s coronavirus diary.

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personal essaysMarch 26, 2020January 1, 2021

How to Quarantine a Revolution

Lebanese writer and actress Dima Mikhayel Matta writes on quarantine, revolution, and being queer in Beirut.

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