Joe Dunthorne

As I ease the blade from my father’s chesthe looks surprised – as though opening the curtains

to snow. Remember the Emperor who beheadeda soldier for dreaming of the Emperor

beheaded. After lunch, my father naps, non-fictionslipping from his fingers. When he wakes he blinks

the room to order. He likes to tell my tiny sonthe story of my birth, an ambulance

in snow chains, the...

In 1967​ Jane Bowles was convalescing in a Málaga psychiatric hospital when a friend brought her the reviews of her Collected Works. The book, which carried an introduction by Truman Capote, had finally brought Bowles’s writing to a wider audience than what she called ‘my five hundred goony friends’. Bowles was unable to read the clippings. A stroke had damaged her...