Fiction | A Third Presence by Nadine Gordimer
When Rose and Naomi, daughters of poor Rasovsky the tailor, left school in the same year there was no discussion about what they should...
Flash Fiction | Never Fall For That by Rebecca Lilly
"Clarify your intent," — Lama Chopra, ourmeditation teacher, rang the bell for us tosit — "the Reaper was once an old friend."My...
The Soviet Prom by Neil Herrington
Wednesday, 21 August 1968
The moment you and Slava enter the dining room, he throws himself on the first person he sees, kisses both of...
Fiction | The Bone Mole by Ed Cottrell
Ed CottrellThe Bone Mole
———There was a little bone mole for sale, a carving of a mole made of bone. It caught my eye sitting...
Fiction | “Smack” from Salt Slow by Julia Armfield
The following text is an extract from the story “Smack”, taken from Julia Armfield’s debut collection Salt Slow, published by Picador: 'The jellyfish come with the morning – a great beaching, bodies black on sand. The ocean empties, a thousand dead and dying invertebrates, jungled tentacles and fine, fragile membranes blanketing the shore two miles in each direction. They are translucent, almost spectral, as though the sea has exorcised its ghosts [...]'
Fiction | The Arrangement by Jennifer Johnson
There’s someone in the kitchen. I hear the kettle being filled. I look at the clock, it’s not yet seven, he’s up early. He...
Archive | Fiction | Silvio by Arturo Vivante
First published in the June 1970 edition of The London Magazine (Vol. 10, No. 3)Like a statue too finely carved, too finished and perfected,...
Fiction | We Can Be Friends by Lauren Sarazen
There was a cluster of coats and hats careening over the railing, and when I got closer I could see what they were looking at. The basin, which had been full of water the last time I’d passed, was drained to the dregs and men in coveralls and tall rubber boots were crawling around in the sludge [...]
Fiction | Not Contagious by Haleh Agar
We’d agreed to the terms and conditions. How to accept and decline an invitation of touch. What to do in case of accidental erection. We’d ticked the box that confirmed we were clean, contagion-free, sound of mind people. Pierre roamed the yoga studio with a disarming smile. He was there to enforce the rules: platonic touch. No funny business. Most people in the studio had paired off, their bodies locked together on those tired mandala cushions. Some lay hidden under white duvets like dead unmoving things [...]
Fiction | Jane Campbell — Schopenhauer and I
Robots could help solve social care crisis, say academics
In the UK alone, 15,000 people are over 100 years of age and this figure will only increase. The robots will offer support with everyday tasks, like taking tablets, as well as offering companionship.
— BBC News, 30th January 2017
Child of Vengeance by David Kirk
Excerpt from Chapter OneThe battle was over, but still Kazuteru ran. He had duty to fulfil. The young samurai ignored the howling of his...
Fiction | Monsters Make Monsters by Nina Ellis
I was the pretty sister. I was the good one, too. Some people said Jackie was the good sister, but that was to compensate for her moving 7,450 miles away from home to save the world. ‘Next right?’ said Jackie, frowning at her phone in the passenger seat. You mean left, babe, I said in my head. Jackie has never had much of a sense of direction, geographically or in life. That’s why I’d come here in the first place—not to see hippos, like I’d told her, but to get her to [...]
Fiction | Are There More People Alive Than Dead? by Laurane...
Laurane MarchiveAre There More People Alive Than Dead?
The phone rings. 5am. It’s your boyfriend. He is in New York so with the time difference,...
Extract | The Governesses by Anne Serre tr. Mark Hutchinson
Anne Serre (tr. Mark Hutchinson)The Governesses
‘One less,’ thought the elderly gentleman to himself as he folded up his telescope. This one wouldn’t be wriggling...
Archive | Leaving School—XI by Ann Quin
The following piece by the post-war experimental writer Ann Quin (1936-1973) was originally published in the July 1966 issue of The London Magazine, but...
The Golden Hour by Frances Gapper
That afternoon was a particularly trying one for Mary. Having changed her mother’s incontinence pad and left her on the sofa watching ‘Homes under...
Spotlight V: Journals Edition | LE GUN / Hotel
The London Magazine has long been a champion of emerging writers and independent publishers, stretching back to the 1950s and 60s, when young writers...
Fiction | Down the Marina by Daniel Kramb
Daniel KrambDown the Marina
At the city’s edge, half way into the marina, Ana-Maria sits on top of her boat, wearing a man’s jumper, pants...
Fiction | Beloved by Roger Raynal
That morning, when Ryoji woke up, fired from sleep by a strident, but usual sound, he refrained from opening his eyes. He wanted to...
Fiction | The Word Necklace by Suzannah V. Evans
The word necklace was intricate, beautiful. When she put it on it felt light, beautiful,
as if she were wearing coral, or air. The word...
Fiction | On His Own Ground by Vis Nathan
First published in the December 1976/January 1977 of The London Magazine (Volume 16, No.5)Gopal entered his cubby-hole surrounded by huge racks bulging with musty...
A Discrete Disclosure by Desmond King
Frank’s Englishness was all about him for he dressed in country wear: tweed sports jackets, check shirts, Burberry rain macs, and a perpetual woollen...
Fiction | Fear In Your Water by Julia Bell
I had been reading Foucault – and not understanding it properly; I was too distracted to concentrate. But I got the gist of it, at least what I thought was the important stuff, what he was saying about madness and how it has been civilised out of us, how back in the day it used to be that sane people and mad people all lived together and there wasn’t so much of a difference. And ‘mad’ people were often seen as visionaries with special access to God. It was only when people [...]
Fiction | Exposition by Nathalie Léger tr. Amanda DeMarco
She enters. She is roused by anger and reproach. She bursts onto the right of the image as if it were a backdrop masked with curtains. One hand clutches a knife against her waist, which gleams obliquely across her belly. Her face is cold, her mouth thin, lips tight, eyebrows knit, her gaze is clear and hard, her hair is slicked into two little severely parted plaits. The knife, whose handle disappears into her balled fist, vibrates at the very center, nearly absent from it [...]