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Amber Husain

Amber Husain is a writer, academic and publisher. She is currently a managing editor and research fellow at Afterall, Central Saint Martins. Her essays and criticism appear or are forthcoming in 3AM, The Believer, London Review of Books, LA Review of Books, Radical Philosophy and elsewhere. She is the author of Replace Me, to be published by Peninsula Press in November 2021.



Articles Available Online


Slouching Towards Death

Book Review

July 2021

Amber Husain

Book Review

July 2021

In January, a preview excerpt in The New Yorker of Rachel Kushner’s essay collection The Hard Crowd (2021) warned us that this might turn...

Book Review

August 2020

Natasha Stagg’s ‘Sleeveless’

Amber Husain

Book Review

August 2020

‘The thong is centimetres closer to areas of arousal,’ writes Natasha Stagg in Sleeveless: Fashion, Image, Media, New York,...

The last fella was baby-faced with tufty brown hair and it was Majella’s turn to sit in front He’d been crapping on about what Dublin girls liked to get up to, and when she didn’t answer, he told her to cheer up outta that and let a smile out of her He took his hand off the gear stick and, before it landed on her knee, she stabbed him in the cheek with the brassy end of her lighter, yelling at him to stop the car From the back seat, Roisin bashed him on the head with her fist and the car skidded sideways onto the grass verge While they scrabbled to get out, he kept shouting, ‘What the fuck?’ Majella slammed the door and, as he screeched away, Roisin whacked her haversack off the boot They stood in the middle of the road yelling ‘wanker’ till he was out of sight    ‘That’ll learn you,’ Roisin shouted ‘Fucken prick’ Then they were both laughing, and yelling, ‘What the fuck? What the fuck?’ in his country-boy accent and mimicking his wide frightened eyes    When they’d calmed down, Roisin lit two fags and handed one to Majella They were on a strip of road with no houses, just rough, tussocky grass and hawthorn Majella sniffed the air From somewhere behind them, the smell of the sea drifted across the fields, mingled with the slight coolness of evening    ‘Fuck’s sake,’ she said ‘Middle of nowhere’   ‘It’ll be grand,’ Roisin said They stood smoking and looking around Roisin took a last drag, dropped her butt onto the road and screwed it into the tarmac with a pointed foot She picked up her haversack, her hair swinging, sleek and shiny, around her face, then walked backwards along the grass verge getting ready to stick her thumb out    ‘My turn to sit up front,’ she said ‘For me sins’   Eventually an auld lad in a filthy Ford pulled up and dropped them outside Jack Whites   Dekko was waiting for them in the car park He strolled over, looped his arms around Roisin’s neck and gave her a long,

Contributor

November 2018

Amber Husain

Contributor

November 2018

Amber Husain is a writer, academic and publisher. She is currently a managing editor and research fellow at Afterall,...

On Having No Skin: Nan Goldin’s Sirens

Art Review

January 2020

Amber Husain

Art Review

January 2020

The feeling of drug-induced euphoria could be strips of gauze between beautiful fingers. Or a silver slinky sent down a torso by its own...
In Defence of Dead Women

Essay

November 2018

Amber Husain

Essay

November 2018

The memorial for the artist was as inconclusive as her work, or anybody’s life. Organised haphazardly on Facebook by one of her old friends,...

READ NEXT

fiction

Issue No. 2

Cafédämmerung

Joshua Cohen

fiction

Issue No. 2

It was even worse in Prague [than in Cuba]. The only reason they got upset with me — I was...

poetry

April 2014

Obsolescence

Joseph Mackertich

poetry

April 2014

A lot of people tell me my voice is similar to that of the actor Christopher Walken. I don’t...

poetry

June 2015

Hotel

Mónica de la Torre

poetry

June 2015

Hotel   The housekeeper has children living in town with her but her husband and relatives are in Somalia....

 

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