The genocidal mind is not the preserve of cartoon monsters in history books. It is a collusion of psychological habits groomed and grown in people like us when we fixate on our private gardens.

Smuggling contraband in from the realm of the actual.

The author of The Extinction of Irina Rey on writing a literary sitcom about life, death and climate change.

Back in high school a friend had called me Matt Damon in the drawl of Team America, but the connection to Tom Ripley felt more psychic, fundamental.

I learned to ignore the doubt that lapped at my ankles, a wave that rose every time I kissed him goodbye, left town for work or travel, and remembered, with a shock, how happily whole I felt alone.

They are often stewed foods, sometimes steamed or boiled. They are foods defined by their colours first—in this context, the lack of colour, the overall sameness, somehow gets misread as a fault.