Granta 5

For long hours Shebani sat up there with open eyes listening to the weeping. It was more whimpering, really, someone weeping from fear of too much silence. During those hours there, paralysed, not moving in his blanket, Shebani grew old. Ever after, we say, he carried Makokha's weeping in his body. From The Modern Common Wind. The issue is the habitability of the earth, and it is in this context, not in the context of the direct slaughter of millions of people by the local effects of nuclear weapons, that the question of human survival arises. from The Fate of the Earth. At an age where most young Scotsmen were lifting skirts, plowing furrows, and spreading seed, Mungo Park was displaying his bare buttocks to al-haff Ali Ibn Fatoudi, Emir of Ludamar. From Mungo Among the Moors. Because Hanley's skin has been stripped off by the enemy, he could find no one who was willing to be with him for long. from Anatomy of Desire. Tottenham Court Road! Street of sin, street of shame! I go there by underground, rumbling beneath the surface, howling through black tunnels. I emerge into the light of those windows of desire gleaming in the winter dusk. There is so much I need. so much I want, and all of it is here in my street of love and lust. From Mnemosyne, Teen Taals, and Tottenham Court Road.