Budapest, Autumn
You’ve seen me, love, tapping Morse code on the pavement, breaking all this peace with both my feet. I’ve been walking home, in the dusk where the concrete settles, thinking “this scene tears my heart — someone should write it down.” With the light on the water, and the day
‘THE TALE OF HAMKIN’ OR ‘THE LITTLE SAUSAGE BOY’
Anon. – Translation from the Middle Dutch by Joshua James I am now going to recount to you the very unfortunate tale of Hamkin, who was a young boy made all of sausages and meat products. I have heard the tale told many times before by tellers various in skill and apprehension, some telling it
“If they see you, they shoot”: An Interview with a North Korean Defector
‘If they see you, they shoot’. Jung tells me about the soldiers stationed every 60 metres along the border he crossed to leave North Korea. ‘My mother was very afraid to leave’ he says, and it is not hard to see why. I meet Jung in a coffee shop in the heart of Seoul, just […]
“Writing’s such a labour-intensive way of attention-seeking. It doesn’t really make any sense.”: An Interview with Will Self
First published in 2001 Ex-drug addict, novelist, short story writer, social commentator, journalist, permanent occupier of The Eye’s Pseud’s Corner, Julie Burchill and Bret Easton Ellis’ best mate, Tom Hill talkes to former Isis cartoonist and his bitter-sweet idol Will Self. Why shoul
New Bodies, Old Norms: Transsexuals in Iran
In the Islamic Republic of Iran, ‘male’ and ‘female’ are clearly defined oppositional concepts. Yet the country is also the world’s second most prolific practitioner of sex-reassignment surgeries. In 1985 Ayatollah Khomeini issues a fatwa stating that transsexuals should be permitted to ch
Review: The Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2015
For the next month, the top floors of The Photographers’ Gallery will be filled with an innovative series of photographs – pinned or projected onto walls, printed in books and pamphlets, animated in videos, illuminated in lightboxes and framed behind glass. The images engage with life in Soviet

