Fiction

When Rose and Naomi, daughters of poor Rasovsky the tailor, left school in the same year there was no discussion about what they should...

"Clarify your intent," — Lama Chopra, ourmeditation teacher, rang the bell for us tosit — "the Reaper was once an old friend."My...

  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...

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...

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 [...]'

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...

 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,...

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 [...]

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 [...]

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

Excerpt from Chapter OneThe battle was over, but still Kazuteru ran. He had duty to fulfil. The young samurai ignored the howling of his...

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 [...]

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,...

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...

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...

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...

The London Magazine has long been a champion of emerging writers and independent publishers, stretching back to the 1950s and 60s, when young writers...

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...

 That morning, when Ryoji woke up, fired from sleep by a strident, but usual sound, he refrained from opening his eyes. He wanted to...

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...

 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...

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...

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 [...]

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 [...]