The London Magazine

The following story is reproduced with permission from The Black and White Museum, a new collection of short stories by Ferdinand Dennis to be published on 2 December by HopeRoad, who last year republished Dennis's 1998 novel Duppy Conqueror. A copy of the new collection can be ordered directly from the publisher here. Ferdinand DennisChristmas Fire Christmas was approaching and London...

The following piece is published as part of our TLM Young Writers series, a dedicated section of The London Magazine's website which showcases the work of exceptional young talent aged between 13-21, from the UK and beyond.Creagh FactorMy Modern Moon The thin tubed stand grasping down to my moon on the right could jangle, whisper, chime but instead we choose silence because it’s not...

A review of Mohammad Ghazali: Persepolis: 2560-2580by Celia Bailey If history is often a fiction ‘written by the victors’, then what we accept as truth might often more accurately be described as the accumulated observations of a host of unreliable witnesses.  Perceptions of truth and the histories that spool out from them are just some of the tools which Iranian...

The following essay is reproduced with permission from the anthology Trauma - An anthology of writing about art and mental health (Dodo Ink, 2021, edited by Sam Mills & Thom Cuell). Alongside this essay, the book contains work from Monique Roffey, Alex Pheby, David Lynch, Kirsty Logan & many others. You can buy the book directly from the publisher...

Carol DeVaughnA review of Everlove by Maggie Butt This heartfelt and moving collection opens with a sequence inspired by the American  artist, Mary Behrens, in her series entitled Run, on the plight of refugees. Maggie Butt’s poems speak both as witness to the devastation and as the mind of the refugees, as if what is being witnessed is also unravelling...

The following piece is published as part of our TLM Young Writers series, a dedicated section of The London Magazine's website which showcases the work of exceptional young talent aged between 13-21, from the UK and beyond.Elliott KaltTen Bodies .......Abraham Jacob readjusted his position again with a resigned sigh, the cold steel train supports beneath him creaking unhappily with his...

We are pleased to bring you an extract from the novel Brickmakers by Selva Almada, translated by Annie McDermott, and published by Charco Press — an Edinburgh-based press that seeks to publish English language translations of the very best of contemporary Latin American literature. Buy the book directly from the publisher here.  Pájaro Tamai and Marciano Miranda, two young men, are...

The following piece is published as part of our TLM Young Writers series, a dedicated section of The London Magazine's website which showcases the work of exceptional young talent aged between 13-21, from the UK and beyond.Creagh FactorScissors At first my scissors felt childish, big plastic handles that were not the deep Roman Tyrian purple but like Dairy Milk wrappers.Then I saw...

Chloë AshbyThe Art of Fiction Second Place, Rachel Cusk, Faber, 2021, 224pp, £14.99 (hardcover) Painting Time, Maylis de Kerangal (tr. Jessica Moore), MacLehose, 2021, 288pp, £16.99 (hardcover)‘The point is to imagine,’ murmurs Paula, the walleyed protagonist of Maylis de Kerangal’s engaging new novel, Painting Time. She’s talking to Kate, with whom she’s studying the art of trompe-l’œil at the Institut de...

Katie da Cunha LewinA Fish in the Stream The Years, Annie Ernaux, Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2018, 240pp, £12.99 (paperback)Happening, Annie Ernaux, Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2019, 96pp, £8.99 (paperback) What does it mean to make your life the subject of your writing? For French writer Annie Ernaux, this is a complex question that goes well beyond simple narration, plot or emotional truth, but to...

Jeffrey MeyersThe Dreadful Cruise of David Foster Wallace Philip Roth, blurbing on the dust wrapper of Saul Bellow’s collected nonfiction, declared, “Rare are the novelists who write nonfiction comparable in strength to their fiction.”  In fact, the opposite is true.  David Foster Wallace (1962-2008) exemplifies the general rule that applies to most post-war American novelists, whose realistic essays are more...

The following piece is published as part of our TLM Young Writers series, a dedicated section of The London Magazine's website which showcases the work of exceptional young talent aged between 13-21, from the UK and beyond.Regina RosenfeldWhat Remains Already, I’ve spent too much time sorting throughall that I have let desire bestow upon me— categorizing the excess of a failed...

Erik MartinyMarion Messina on 'Monstrous' Novels Marion Messina is a high-profile French journalist who writes for Marianne and other newspapers. She made headlines with her debut novel Faux Départ (False Start) in 2017. The novel recounts the professional and amorous tribulations of a young woman who aspires to climb the social ladder only to find that her country is less...

Jeffrey MeyersThe Dreadful Cruise of David Foster Wallace.......Philip Roth, blurbing on the dust wrapper of Saul Bellow’s collected nonfiction, declared, 'Rare are the novelists who write nonfiction comparable in strength to their fiction.' In fact, the opposite is true.  David Foster Wallace (1962-2008) exemplifies the general rule that applies to most postwar American novelists, whose realistic essays are more...

Naomi MorrisHyperlove The two pieces below are reproduced with permission from the closing stages of Hyperlove by Naomi Morris (Makina Books, September 2021). Hyperlove burns with frustration and fervour as Morris explores heteronormative ideals, romantic happily-ever-afters and the historical oppression of women and their right to agency and expression. Yet Hyperlove isn’t constrained to a sense of personal storytelling. In...

Alice MerryI leave myself in the bull-filled room  i. ...The bull fills the room.......................................................................throws ...its horns.............wide...................................................................handfuls of barnacle.................tapering............into slick ivory points.................medieval    ...chessmen  spearing..................................................................the paintwork .........................................................................................................the bull ...is slick dense its skin pungent with grease.........................................the smell ...........of coffee grounds.........black pepper.................................the angular bronze ...of its backside .nudges the walls........................lowers the thickly ...veined swing......of its haunches........................into a crouch...............hooves ...unsettle the floor ..........................the girl ...must not touch the bull ..............must fit herself............in...

The following piece is published as part of our TLM Young Writers series, a dedicated section of The London Magazine's website which showcases the work of exceptional young talent aged between 13-21, from the UK and beyond.Abigail HukeRisk of Showers   I want my rage to be hot and dry but it is wet and somewhat tepid. The temperature of the bath when...

The text below is a translated extract from Ricochets by Camille Emmanuelle. Ricochets opens on 7 January 2015, as Camille accompanies her husband Luz—cartoonist for Charlie Hebdo—to his first psychiatric appointment following the terrorist attacks that took place earlier that day. In this book, Camille Emmanuelle conducts both a personal and journalistic investigation into an under-appreciated domain of post-traumatic stress, something...

Shannon Kuta KellyNothing You Could Call a Place The flat on Szlak had two identical but separate entrances on either side of the building, so that often, if it was dark or I was tired, I couldn’t recall which I had used. If I woke up from a particularly strange dream or deep sleep, I would try to remember if...

Kimberly CampanelloA Circular Walk That Sunday they had crossed, probably illegally, into the area that held the poet’s grave. She and her boyfriend had decided that despite the cold it was time to leave their city and cross the county, seeking air and beauty in lieu of ceaseless isolation in the comfort of their home. They were unsure of their...

The following piece is published as part of our TLM Young Writers series, a dedicated section of The London Magazine's website which showcases the work of exceptional young talent aged between 13-21, from the UK and beyond.Charlie HinkleyAdvertising 7:45 am. The (almost) future. You start your day as normal. The blue light from your phone stings your eyes before the sun has...

Horatio MorpurgoXR Meta Incognita The journalist Raymond Keene was eating in a West End restaurant last summer when XR’s ‘Impossible Rebellion’ passed by. He saw in the protest a symptom of ‘diminishing rationality in western society… marked by a sometimes hysterical and frequently hypocritical drive to combat so-called climate change.’ Other symptoms of weakened reason include ‘abandonment of lithium-rich Afghanistan’...

Suey KweonMapping Chillies My mother used to lay out her chillies to dry from around August time each year on the pavements that lined the tower blocks of apartments. The best real estate was naturally the concrete road which was dark and absorbed the hard sun most robustly, but it was hard to find enough of this space where cars...

The London MagazineDouglas Abdell talks to Jean Wainwright about 'A Reconstructed Trap House' A conversation between Douglas Abdell and Jean Wainwright at AB-ANBAR Gallery. JW: I want to begin with some of the earliest work that you are exhibiting in your current Reconstructed Trap House exhibition. Can tell me about the Aekyadic work? What was their evolution and how do they...