Close Up

Photo by Daniel Devoti, courtesy of Wikicommons Franklin Nelson   There is a close-up black-and-white photograph of Mario Vargas Llosa, who…

Maria Jastrzębska I'm back again in Warsaw. Lime trees (lipy) are blossoming everywhere. The scent of their fuzzy, star-shaped yellow and…

In August 2024,  the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference at Middlebury University in Vermont, founded almost a century ago in 1926, brought…

Miraya McCoy  My visit to Brent Library Archive last summer, just east of Wembley in North-West London, uncovered boxes of guidebooks…

Photo of Clinton "Bageye" Grant Colin Grant In the winter of 1971, the sheets of brown paper used by my mother…

Franklin Nelson   Inaugurated as the 47th president of the United States of America, Donald Trump wasted no time in evoking,…

Photo of Renu Arora by Andy Martinez On Finding Freedom Renu Arora   Scrolling back in time Soap Nurses Toilet roll…

Bad Bunny   I had the pleasure of being in Puerto Rico on the 5th of January, the eve of Three…

‘…for my part it's nothing to me--as I am only a lodger--and hardly that.’  - LETTER XXXVIII of Ignatius Sancho By…

Franklin Nelson   ‘Before Marrakesh everything was black. This city taught me colour’, observed the French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent,…