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Preti Taneja
PRETI TANEJA is a writer and activist, and Professor of World Literature and Creative Writing at Newcastle University, UK. Her novel WE THAT ARE YOUNG (Galley Beggar Press) won the UK’s Desmond Elliott Prize, and was listed for awards including the Folio Prize, Republic of Consciousness Prize (UK), the Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize (India) and Europe’s premier award for a work of world literature, the Prix Jan Michalski. It has been translated into several languages and is published in the USA by AA Knopf. Her new book, AFTERMATH on the language of trauma, terror, prison and abolition is part of the Undelivered Lecturers series from Transit Books USA, and will be published in the UK by And Other Stories in April 2022.


Articles Available Online


Order, Order

Essay

December 2021

Preti Taneja

Essay

December 2021

‘INQUESTS INTO THE DEATHS ARISING FROM THE FISHMONGERS’ HALL AND LONDON BRIDGE TERROR ATTACK CASE MANAGEMENT’1   with asides, insertions, questions and other patterns...

Fiction

Issue No. 30

HOTEL STATIONARY (AND THIS IS THAT)

Preti Taneja

Fiction

Issue No. 30

And the night John Berger died, I, Maria, pale shadow, the youngest sister of Sabine, was walking the city....

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

February 2020

Preti Taneja

Contributor

February 2020

PRETI TANEJA is a writer and activist, and Professor of World Literature and Creative Writing at Newcastle University, UK. Her...

In conversation: Preti Taneja and Gina Apostol

Feature

February 2020

Gina Apostol

Preti Taneja

Feature

February 2020

Adelaide, Writers Week, March 2019. It was 41 degrees, and it was the furthest I have ever flown. I was standing at the fringes...

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poetry

June 2012

At Night the Wife Makes Her Point: Two Poems

Gioconda Belli

TR. Charles Castaldi

poetry

June 2012

AT NIGHT, THE WIFE MAKES HER POINT   No. I don’t have Cindy Crawford’s legs. I haven’t spent my...

fiction

January 2015

Shishosetsu...

Minae Mizumura

TR. Juliet Winters Carpenter

fiction

January 2015

This is an excerpt from the novel published in Japanese as Shishosetsu from left to right (私小説 from left...

fiction

January 2015

Judge Sa’b

Uday Prakash

TR. Jason Grunebaum

fiction

January 2015

Nine years ago, after thirteen years of living in the Rohini neighbourhood of north Delhi, I moved, and came...

 

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