‘She soon realizes that something, perhaps something akin to a bird, is living within the contours of his face, and that the warmth of it awakens an immediate pain in her.’

Greek Lessons
HAN KANG
(transl. by Deborah Smith and Emily Yae Won)

‘It's enough for her to straighten the collar of my shirt, and that touch calms everything in the universe. Misfortune has reduced us to our essence. And nothing is left of us, apart from love.’

My Heart
SEMEZDIN MEHMEDINOVIĆ
(transl. by Celia Hawkesworth)

‘I have brought you a small grief so it can grow in your hands, and doors open to absence so you can attend, and whenever my cousins kill me, my mother gives birth to me again in refugee camps.’

I Have Brought You a Severed Hand,
GHAYATH ALMADHOUN
(Transl. by Catherine Cobham)

♥️

‘Something has ended here. But something else begins. The dead dig wells in the living.’

One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
OMAR EL AKKAD, 2025.

‘But I’m going to die in a few hours. That’s going to happen, isn’t it? It’s strange how calm I am. Because even though you haven’t told me, I know. And still, it’s an impossible thing to tell yourself.’

Fever Dream,
SAMANTA SCHWEBLIN
(transl. by Megan McDowell)

‘I was both certain of her love for me and aware of one blatant injustice: she spent all day selling milk and potatoes so that I could sit in a lecture hall and learn about Plato.’

A Woman’s Story,
ANNIE ERNAUX
(transl. by Tanya Leslie)

‘Dreams would not find room in a mud house, hastily built like a chicken coop with seven dreamers crowded inside – none of whom would call the others by name since names had become numbers.’

In the Presence of Absence,
MAHMOUD DARWISH
(transl. by Sinan Antoon)

‘As they carried on along and met more people Furlong did and did not know, he found himself asking was there any point in being alive without helping one another?’

Small Things Like These, CLAIRE KEEGAN (2021)