'Escapees from St Mary’s, Paddington: expectant father smoking; old lady wheeling herself in a wheelchair, smoking; die-hard holding urine sack, blood sack, smoking.'
When I left for Paris at the age of nineteen, you were still a stranger to me. Come to think of it, I never called you Mama; I called you Mother, just as I never called my father Papa. How did that come about?
Lydia Davis, Zadie Smith, Leanne Shapton, Chad Harbach, John Updike, Simon Wroe, Evgeny Zamyatin. Poetry by Rachael Allen. Plus: Philip Oltermann exposes the world's worst book.
