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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,...

sweet sweet agency   the candy here is hard & filled & there is nothing i love more than to be treasured if nobody’s watching i just do nothing: lie down don’t hardly breathe, keep my face in careful stillness not to crease its cute forgettability the world is full of edible munchkins & it is my life’s work to work out how to stay creamy on the inside, how not to sour myself up with little nips of this or that or otherwise cut holes in myself thru which to be seen i must learn to love what i cannot know: the wide bleached anus on a porn blog, the insane demands of toddlers, the desire for moderation or slimness of affection, the reasons lovers leave, the trash my cat brings back, the crack of footsteps in the woods at night, why the killer kills i learn it all the hard way but fwiw i would never snap the rabbit’s neck again i would rewind i would keep it every time     honey lamb   don’t remember going downstairs saying sorry or nevermind just the moment of waking not knowing if it’s dusk or dawn sweating like a hothouse flower red & wet & pulled up from under & gasping steeped & steaming like a teabag & drunk on sleep & beer & sadness blue & dewy as a hothouse flower & the white white vodka crouching neat as a bullet low inside me & burning light like a living laser & i feed it – milk & bread & honey & lamb – until i’m sticky as an ant & shining like a hothouse flower thrumming with the urgent clag of honey blood across my chest in uneven lubbing – my vodka heart trembles like a chihuahua & bruises break across my skin all purple & yellow as hothouse flowers & the white hot vodka stars at dusk & dawn glitter inside me i am beautiful as a hothouse flower when i turn myself on i light up in twinkling points between the milky bones of my ribs & pelvis & all the bulbs i planted in my fat hot head burst into bright flowers through my eyes & my teeth bleat like a lamb & i spark myself up into a column of coloured light & fire

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

November 2012

Religion and the Movies

Aidan Cottrell Boyce

fiction

November 2012

When the Roman Empire ruled the world, you could make it work for you. The women, the hospitality. You...

Prize Entry

April 2017

A JOURNEY THROUGH ☆ FAMOUS ☆ BY ♫ 'KANYE WEST' ♫

Liam Cagney

Prize Entry

April 2017

A twilit bedroom. Silence. Ceiling view of the base of a hyper-extended bed—the length of a catwalk. Slow pan...

feature

March 2013

Heroines

Kate Zambreno

feature

March 2013

I am beginning to realise that taking the self out of our essays is a form of repression. Taking...

 

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