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Leon Craig
Leon Craig is a writer and editor based in Berlin. She has written for the TLS, the Literary ReviewAnother Gaze and the London Magazine among others. Her queer gothic short story collection Parallel Hells is published by Sceptre Books and she is currently working on her first novel The Decadence.

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Cosy Violence

Book Review

June 2023

Leon Craig

Book Review

June 2023

The 22 year old Australian narrator of K Patrick’s sensuous, subversive debut novel is a long way from home. A matron at an unnamed...

Fiction

September 2021

Lick the Dust

Leon Craig

Fiction

September 2021

When you misplace something in the library here, it stays lost for a very long time. The eighteenth-century catalogue...

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

Leon Craig

Contributor

April 2016

Leon Craig is a writer and editor based in Berlin. She has written for the TLS, the Literary Review, Another Gaze and the London Magazine among...

Art Review

April 2019

Oscar Wilde Temple, Studio Voltaire

Leon Craig

Art Review

April 2019

The light is dim, the air richly scented. Little purple tea lights flicker in the votive candle rack and...

[Getting] Down with Gal Pals

Feature

November 2018

Leon Craig

Feature

November 2018

There’s a moment in Laura Kaye’s underrated novel English Animals when the protagonist Mirka, sitting in the village bar with her married lover, notices...
Mute Canticle

Prize Entry

April 2016

Leon Craig

Prize Entry

April 2016

Giulio the singing fascist came to pick me up from the little airport in his Jeep. He made sure to come round and hold...

READ NEXT

poetry

September 2016

Two Poems

Sun Yung Shin

poetry

September 2016

  Autoclonography   for performance   In 1998, scientists in South Korea claimed to have successfully cloned a human...

feature

September 2013

To Sing the Love of Danger

Adnan Sarwar

feature

September 2013

The Gulf War made my first year at Towneley High School uncomfortable. White lads taunted us Pakistanis with pictures...

feature

January 2017

Take Comfort

Heather Radke

feature

January 2017

I. One week after Buzz and Heather broke up, she dragged her mattress into her living room. She moved...

 

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