More than twenty years after his first encounter with ‘Kleist in Thun’, BEN WINCH continues to be dazzled: ‘each time I gaze into that mirror—a mirror-within-mirror, and therefore, if the angle’s just right, a particularly dazzling one—I see a different face. ‘
TRACY FELLS explores the emotional resonance of three very different short stories: ‘When you read a short story that thwacks an emotional punch or haunts your daydreams then you have to talk about it. I read at least one short story daily, so what prompts me to talk about specific pieces…?’
NAOMI FOYLE looks at Arab Sci-Fi in the pages of ‘Iraq +100: Stories From a Century After the Invasion’: ‘a landmark anthology of short stories in a scintillating variety of genres and tones, a book of riveting ulterior visions…’
FARHANA SHAIKH explores the homeliness of food in Jhumpa Lahiri’s debut collection: ‘In Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies food is more than just sustenance, it is purpose, priority and preoccupation…’
In the first of our new series featuring the editors of literary magazines, David Frankel speaks with Sean Preston, editor of Open Pen Magazine.
JO COLE finds that women are still from Venus and men are still from Mars in Hilary Mantel’s short story ‘Winter Break’: ‘Science demonstrates that the differences between men and women are real. Women have 11% more neurons in the brain’s hearing areas than men so consequently can hear better.’
DR CHRIS MACHELL discusses the themes of James Bond stories and their adaptations: ‘…as the films were not produced in the sequence of the books’ publication, continuity between stories was usually either abandoned altogether or significantly rejigged. This method of adaptation resulted in the films often bearing little resemblance to their source texts…’
A.J. ASHWORTH identifies with the transformative power of chopping wood in Raymond Carver’s ‘Kindling’: ‘It’s not always obvious why some stories stay with us, why they seep into the small tributaries in our brains, colouring our minds like ink in water. Sometimes the reason a story resonates may be more obvious though.’
