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Sophie Mackintosh
Sophie Mackintosh's fiction has appeared in Granta and The Stinging Fly, among others. She was the winner of the 2016 White Review Short Story Prize and the Virago X Stylist short story prize. Her debut novel, The Water Cure, is published by Hamish Hamilton in the UK and forthcoming from Doubleday in the US.

Articles Available Online


Lena Andersson's ‘Acts of Infidelity’

Book Review

July 2018

Sophie Mackintosh

Book Review

July 2018

Acts of Infidelity is the second novel by Lena Andersson that follows unlucky-in-love heroine Ester Nilsson, and it’s another scalpel-sharp look at a doomed...

Fiction

May 2018

Self-Improvement

Sophie Mackintosh

Fiction

May 2018

I had been sent back from the city in disgrace, back to my parents’ house in the country. It...

1 российский захватчик, забывший о воинской чести, бойся женского заговора и женской мести, бойся украинских девочек с бутылками зажигательной смеси, бойся наших женщин, особенно в чужом незнакомом месте тебя не звали, не приглашали, не ждали, танчикам твоим допотопным открутят педали, сорвут твою маску, расцарапают тебе морду, наши длинные ногти давно уже вошли в моду наши тонкие пальцы привыкли к технике кухни, она сложнее твоих тупых машин, чтоб твои вены вспухли, чтоб тебя кондрашка хватила у чужого жилого дома, чтоб ты остался под обломками взорванного аэродрома, чтоб ты не вышел из танка, чтоб тебе на шею шина, у украинской женщины работает посудомоечная машина, на столе паровой утюг, в кухне – духовка, электроварка, а тебя кроме стрелять ничему не научили припарка наши женщины бинтуют раны, плетут маскировочные сети, против тебя дурака, в чужой стране ты один на свете чтоб твоя немытая жизнь стала вечной мукой позора, мы не слушали соловьева, мы читали Кафку и Кьеркегора, мы не простим тебя любого, запомни, паскуда мы уже красим ногти и, пока не поздно, вали отсюда     Russian invader, forget all about chivalry, Fear female revenge and female conspiracy, Fear Ukrainian girls, Molotov cocktails in hand, Fear our women, above all in this strange foreign land They didn’t call or invite you, they weren’t waiting for you Keep an eye on your obsolete tank—they’ll unscrew The pedals, rip off your mask, scratch off your face Our long nails are the latest in fashion and grace, Our slender fingers accustomed to kitchen complexity— That’s harder than your dumb vehicles To give you apoplexy, To strike you dead in the house that is someone else’s home, To keep you under the rubble of the bombed-out airdrome, To stop you getting out of the tank, put you in a cervical collar— In a Ukrainian woman’s home, there’s a working dishwasher, An iron on the table, a slow cooker with a steam valve But you know nothing but shooting, nothing of salve Our women bind up wounds, their camouflage nets unfurl To fight you, you fool— in a foreign country, alone in the world To turn your uncleansed life into an eternal torment of shame We ignored Solovyov and read—Kafka and Kierkegaard, by name Remember, we’ll forgive nothing, you scumbags, so flee your fate We’re painting our nails now Get out of here–before it’s too late     2 Сегодня другая война Не та, что была вчера Сегодняшняя тяжелее

Contributor

April 2016

Sophie Mackintosh

Contributor

April 2016

Sophie Mackintosh’s fiction has appeared in Granta and The Stinging Fly, among others. She was the winner of the...

Grace

Prize Entry

Issue No. 17

Sophie Mackintosh

Prize Entry

Issue No. 17

14. It comes for me in the middle of the day when I am preparing lunch, quartering a tomato then slicing each segment in...

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poetry

September 2011

Sleepwalking through the Mekong

Michael Earl Craig

poetry

September 2011

I have my hands out in front of me. I’m lightly patting down everything I come across. I somehow...

feature

August 2017

What Makes A Gallery Programme?

Pac Pobric

feature

August 2017

Of his art dealer, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, Pablo Picasso once wondered, ‘What would have become of us if Kahnweiler hadn’t...

Art

December 2013

When We Were Here: The 1990s in Film

Masha Tupitsyn

Art

December 2013

‘I remember touch. Pictures came with touch.’ -Daft Punk, ‘Touch’   In the 1990s, three important pre post-reality films...

 

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