litro.co.uk

From the Editor

Food! Glorious food … we just can’t get enough of it, especially at Christmas time – on our plates, in our dreams, and especially in our books. Every December the latest gorgeously-photographed Jamie, Nigella and Gordon cooking tomes fly off the shelves so that aspirational armchair chefs can fantasise about lavish meals – and at the same time, magazines offer tips to “help you slim into that party outfit”…

Mixed messages? You bet: this time of year might be the season of giving and goodwill, but it’s also become the season of gorging and gluttony. Well, no more: Litro’s putting you on a strict diet of good writing – no junk-food thrillers, no sugary chick-lit and definitely no recipes. Instead, we’ve got a smorgasbord of succulent stories for you to indulge in this month – and the best thing is, you know it’s good for you.

In this issue you’ll find a brilliantly disastrous pre-Christmas dinner party in our extract from Comfort and Joy, India Knight’s latest comic tour de force; Kevlin Henney’s quantum take-away in Schrödinger’s Pizza; a mother and daughter at war over curries in Muslims Eat Meat by N S R Khan, and a restaurant for the lost and broken in S J Butler’s moving, atmospheric The Flotsam Cafe.

We’re also catering for more rarefied tastes with K L Gillespie’s flash fiction Dinner Date, where a young man on a bus succumbs to fleshly yearnings of an unusual kind, and Stuart Snelson’s Tasteless, which explores the world of an obsessive food photographer striving for perfection.

And once you’ve cleaned your literary plate, there’s plenty more on the menu here on the website. Tuck in to audio fiction from Fay Franklin and Luke de Castro, involving a star chef with a guilty secret, and a noirish approach to pancake-making, as well as our online-exclusive Ones To Watch stories, featuring everything from sun-eating to sinister sweet-shops. Just don’t spoil your appetite …

Bon appetit – and have a great Christmas.

Katy Darby
Editor

December 2011

From the Editor

God Bless America is the theme of this issue, and after the Fourth of July fireworks have died down, with the ten-year anniversary of 9/11 approaching, now is an interesting time to look across the Atlantic to count the blessings (and curses) of the United States.

We’ve got stories by authors from the East and West coasts and points in between: from Canada, Connecticut and (in a very 21^st-century twist) by Bloc Party frontman Kele Okereke, who lives in both London and New York. The narrator of Kele’s story His first dead body, aptly enough, is a semi-stranger to the Big Apple, getting a baptism of fire after a wild night out – and the alienation he feels is echoed in Louise Phillips’s Keeping Up, a tale of immigration and integration told over 100 years through key moments in American history, from Ellis Island to OJ.

Ghosts – of history, of memory, of dreams and desires – also populate this issue, from the slaves freed by the Underground Railroad in Mark Saba’s View, to the best friend who haunts hardbitten Hollywood agent Peg in Janice Shapiro’s Night and Day. Even the real estate copywriter in Paul Beckman’s bittersweet Whatchamacallit is haunted, in this case by the words that are starting to escape him.

We’ve got poetry too, from Ryan Buynak, who sings us the unheard Song of the Busboy “playing five nights a week/ sometimes six, depending/ if someone needs a shift covered” and flash fiction from former pro hardball player S. E. Cohn, who fits more story between parentheses than many more prolix writers do in a thousand words.

In Litro this month, with the support of the American Embassy, we’ve sought out and brought you brand new work by the best emerging American writers – some of these names may be new to you now, but that’s because they represent the future of Stateside literature, not its past. We believe our authors in this issue put the stars in the Stars and Stripes – and we’re sure, when you read their stories, you’ll agree.

Have a nice day!

Katy Darby
Editor

July 2011

From the Editor

When I first went to Barcelona in the late 60s, Catalan was banned, a language that Catalans could only speak in the safety of their homes, and Catalan literature suffered an equally semi- clandestine existence. Torture, imprisonment and death possibly awaited those who dared to try to go public with their language or claim other democratic right like the freedom to organise in unions. I think the writing in this issue of Litro shows how Catalan literature and language have survived civil war and decades of dictatorship to emerge in a range of old voices that were once silenced and new ones who refashion old myths, are self- critical and satirical, sexy and playful. These writers are eager to extend their language and confront the issues of the day. Some were born elsewhere and write in Catalan and their visibility speaks for the self-confident openness of the culture. If you enjoy Miró or Messi, Gaudíor or Ferran Adrià, you’ll relish these literary ways into Catalan history and culture.

Peter Bush

Guest Editor

May 2011

Peter Bush

Peter Bush is an award-winning literary translator who now lives in Barcelona. Previously he directed the British Centre for Literary Translation at the University of East Anglia. His recent translations from Spanish include Níjar Country, and Exiled From Almost Everywhere by Juan Goytisolo. He is now working on first drafts of the modern Catalan classics, Josep Pla’s The Gray Notebook and Joan Sales’ Uncertain Glory.