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

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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...

Once upon a time there was – no, better: you are a thief who wanders through the cities and deserts of a mythical Persia robbing carpets and small treasures Like an actor who has just arrived in the world of soap operas, you are good-looking, young and athletic; there is always a few days’ stubble on your suntanned face, making you look like an occasional surfer Your allies are a sharp scimitar and a donkey You are the protagonist of the game Prince of Persia[1] and your situation, at the moment, is as follows: you were surprised by a sandstorm and lost sight of the beast, Farah, who was carrying your latest spoils on his back Unable to see a thing, you advance with difficulty into the abrasive wind from the storm, fall into a canyon and the only reason you don’t break your back is thanks to the extraordinary athletic skills already mentioned The camera cuts to a shot of the angelic little toes of a girl trying to escape from armed soldiers running across the harsh sands of the desert Her flight leads her to jump into the canyon, and she falls on top of you She’s beautiful, lean, her hair cut with a knife, and she has a hippy-chic look composed of a small white blouse, light and finely worked, and corsair’s shoes made from dark grey twill Her beautiful face is reminiscent of Natalie Portman’s, with finer and more angular features Her body is spread out on top of yours You say, ‘Hey’ She covers your mouth with her hand until she can be sure the soldiers have lost the trail, looks briefly into your eyes, and runs away   Up until now, you – the player, not the thief – were merely observing the scene, as in a film, but at this instant, the control passes into your hands The instructions which appear on screen show how to direct the character of the thief in pursuit of the girl using the joystick commands, from a third-person perspective which is one step back from the

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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feature

Issue No. 16

Scroll, Skim, Stare

Orit Gat

feature

Issue No. 16

1.   This is an essay about contemporary art that includes no examples. It includes no examples because its...

fiction

March 2017

A Table is a Table

Peter Bichsel

TR. Lydia Davis

fiction

March 2017

I want to tell a story about an old man, a man who no longer says a word, has...

Interview

Issue No. 13

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye

Orlando Reade

Interview

Issue No. 13

Modern philosophy is threatened by love, whose objects are never only objects. Philosophers have discovered in love a lived...

 

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