Three children go to the shop to buy ice-cream and never return home.The year is 1977. Nine-year-old Adrian lives with his gran and his uncle Rory. He loves to draw and he wants a dog. He’s afraid of quicksand, shopping centers and self-combustion. But as closely as he watches his suburban world, there is much he cannot understand. He does not, for instance, know why three neighbourhood children might set out to buy ice-cream one summer’s day and never be ...

An Alphabet of Embers is an anthology of unclassifiables – lyrical, surreal, magical, experimental pieces that straddle the border between poetry and prose. It lives in a place between darkness and sound, between roads and breaths, its pages taut with starlight; between its covers, words talk to each other, and have an occasional cup of tea.Edited by Rose Lemberg, featuring work by:Alvaro Zinos-AmaroAmal El-MohtarArkady MartineCeleste Rita Baker...

Ward Muir brings us into the heart of an English war hospital, describing scenes of cleanliness, triumph, order and sadness. Through the eyes of the orderly we get to see the processes that kept the wards running, and relive some tales from within the hospital walls.

In "The Four Sonyas," Vladimír Páral uses a Perils-of-Pauline story to examine the way people manipulate and exploit each other. Sonya is a hotel maid who clings to a fairy-tale dream that someday a prince will come and save her. Since Sonya is young and beautiful, there are many princes who share her dream. But the princes are more like frogs, of course, and instead of saving Sonya they flirt with her, kidnap her, and give her mysterious directives. However, even they are really no more f...