No God but God
Prologue: The clash of monotheismsAlmost immediately following the attacks on New York and Washington, DC, pundits, politicians, and preachers throughout the United States and Europe declared that...
View ArticleThe Ice Museum by Joanna Kavenna
... Only the past is immortal.Decide to take a trip, read books of travelGo quickly! Even Socrates is mortalMention the name of happiness: it isAtlantis, Ultima Thule, or the limelight, Cathay or...
View ArticleMisfortune by Wesley Stace
By now, Pharaoh had reached his destination. A dirty young man of no more than fifteen years, he stood at the door of a crooked house in an alley, out of breath, gasping for air and wondering what to...
View Article26a by Diana Evans
Chapter one: HamBefore they were born, Georgia and Bessi experienced a moment of indecision. They had been travelling through the undergrowth on a crescent moon night with no fixed destination and no...
View ArticleThe Farm
Chapter one: Pig TroubleThis story really begins five years earlier, on a windy, rain-blackened day in September. It was half past eight in the morning, and I was in the kitchen of my flat in London...
View ArticleTwo poems from To A Fault
DoneWe've come to bag the evidence.This might be the scene of a murder. Dustsheets and silence and blame.The flat empties its stomach into the hall. We have given back letters and eaten our words. You...
View ArticleStuart: A Life Backwards by Alexander Masters
Stuart does not like the manuscript.Through the pale Tesco stripes of his supermarket bag I can see the wedge of my papers. Two years' worth of interviews and literary effort."What's the matter with...
View ArticleSightseeing by Rattawut Lapcharoensap
FarangsThis is how we count the days. June: the Germans come to the Island - football cleats, big T-shirts, thick tongues - speaking like spitting. July: the Italians, the French, the British, the...
View ArticleTen diverse authors make longlist
The countdown for the Guardian First Book Award begins today with a longlist which is the most diverse yet in ethnic origin and theme.The 10 authors come from Iran, Thailand, India, Malaysia, the US,...
View ArticleKeeping it real: non-fiction tops Guardian First Book list
· Readers' groups come out fighting· Thai collection signals return of the short storyNon-fiction reigns almost supreme in this year's £10,000 Guardian First Book Award shortlist, announced today,...
View ArticleThe Farm by Richard Benson
Richard Benson goes in search of perspective in an extract from his Guardian First Book Award shortlisted The FarmIf, as a historian, you were to look closely at a particular village in a particular...
View ArticleWhen we were heroes
Think of Liverpool and you think of the Beatles. South Yorkshire's bleaker touchstone is the cult film, Kes. Today, Barnsley's grim colleries have been replaced with shopping malls. So why are the...
View ArticleBiography of homeless man wins Guardian First Book Award
Alexander Masters has tonight beaten a strong field to win the £10,000 Guardian First Book Award for Stuart: A Life Backwards, his biography of homeless man Stuart Shorter. Told in reverse, from...
View ArticleVagrant's tale sweeps up literary accolade
· Guardian first book award for 'topsy-turvy' account· 'Compelling and funny' version of a tragic lifeOne of the year's most unlikely favourite books, the saga of a wild street vagrant prone to...
View ArticleMy friend Stuart
Alexander Masters has won the Guardian First Book Award for his biography of a psychopathic homeless man. He tells Aida Edemariam why he still misses Stuart, who did not live to see the book...
View ArticleNo God but God
Prologue: The clash of monotheismsAlmost immediately following the attacks on New York and Washington, DC, pundits, politicians, and preachers throughout the United States and Europe declared that...
View ArticleThe Ice Museum by Joanna Kavenna
... Only the past is immortal.Decide to take a trip, read books of travelGo quickly! Even Socrates is mortalMention the name of happiness: it isAtlantis, Ultima Thule, or the limelight, Cathay or...
View ArticleMisfortune by Wesley Stace
By now, Pharaoh had reached his destination. A dirty young man of no more than fifteen years, he stood at the door of a crooked house in an alley, out of breath, gasping for air and wondering what to...
View Article26a by Diana Evans
Chapter one: HamBefore they were born, Georgia and Bessi experienced a moment of indecision. They had been travelling through the undergrowth on a crescent moon night with no fixed destination and no...
View ArticleThe Farm
Chapter one: Pig TroubleThis story really begins five years earlier, on a windy, rain-blackened day in September. It was half past eight in the morning, and I was in the kitchen of my flat in London...
View Article
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