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Rebecca Liu
Rebecca Liu is a commissioning editor at Guardian Saturday and a staff writer at Another Gaze.

Articles Available Online


There are only girls on the internet

Book Review

August 2022

Rebecca Liu

Book Review

August 2022

I remember the first time I saw it, like a freshly alert hare alarmed by movement in the distant grasslands. It was 2013. Model...

Book Review

September 2020

Pankaj Mishra’s ‘Bland Fanatics’

Rebecca Liu

Book Review

September 2020

The Anglo-American commentariat is full of lofty egos. Pankaj Mishra has developed a reputation as their great deflater. ‘Watch...

Agata and I were both eleven years old when she first introduced me to her machine We were in all the same classes She was sallow and thin, with enormous hands and feet She wore her dark brown hair in a short bob, held back from her face with a plain, plastic barrette Her eyebrows weren’t thick, but they were long, stretching to her temples Her mouth was wide, but her lips were thin, with an expressiveness that reminded me of worms   She wasn’t tormented by our schoolmates and teachers, as I was The only student they treated worse than me was Large Barbara, who was so fat she walked with a cane, had one lazy eyeball, and a wart on her chin so long and thin it mocked the rest of her body Agata wasn’t teased or tormented because she was a genius She excelled in the sciences and maths, and could write beautiful, complex poems, though she only did so when it was a school assignment She often yawned and shook one of her legs in class; she finished her work before everyone else Some teachers let her read her own books, imported ones in foreign languages, full of complicated diagrams just as mysterious to the rest of us as the words   Though she wasn’t bullied, she also didn’t have any friends She seemed above such trivialities No one invited her to parties – it was impossible to imagine her at them She spent her lunch break reading She didn’t play or gossip She saw the other students as a nuisance, like flies or fleas Some tried to pay her to do their homework, but she responded with, ‘You think I don’t have better things to do?’ in a tone of voice that was arrogant, and delighted in its own arrogance, her worm mouth wiggling   Agata’s parents were poor because they had so many children, but they still bought her whatever she needed or desired so she could focus on her schoolwork: books, expensive pens, cigarettes Agata was the eldest, and the most promising of her siblings The rest were snivelly,

Contributor

August 2019

Rebecca Liu

Contributor

August 2019

Rebecca Liu is a commissioning editor at Guardian Saturday and a staff writer at Another Gaze.

Jia Tolentino’s ‘Trick Mirror’

Book Review

August 2019

Rebecca Liu

Book Review

August 2019

Talk about the fates of young professional women today and you will often alight on two themes: the anxieties that come with living in...

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Art

June 2015

Photo London

Art

June 2015

From May 21-24, London’s Somerset House hosted the inaugural edition of London’s new international photography fair, Photo London.  ...

feature

Issue No. 20

From a Cuban Notebook

J. S. Tennant

feature

Issue No. 20

Beneath the rain, beneath the smell, beneath all that is a reality a people makes and unmakes itself leaving...

fiction

Issue No. 1

Beyond the Horizon

Patrick Langley

fiction

Issue No. 1

Listen to the silence, let it ring on. (Joy Division, Transmission) I It is not yet dawn. The city...

 

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