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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...

The scent of osmanthus blossoms still lingered in her neighbourhood when a handful of men entered her home Yet when they stepped through her bedroom door, they were blindsided by an overpowering stench that drove each one to put a hand over his nose    She wasn’t dead yet, merely lying on a bed that was very likely the source of the odour The clutter and filth in the room were easily imaginable; one might describe her own appearance the same way Perhaps the only comforting aspect to the scene were two hedgehog cacti that stood motionless out on the balcony, glowing green under the angled gaze of the afternoon sun As they grew very slowly and wanted nothing besides sunlight, it was basically impossible to tell whether they were alive or dead    She kept on sleeping, or was unwilling to deal with other people, so the men only stood by her bedside for a moment before hurrying back to the living room, taking care to leave her bedroom door open    Although the living room was also covered in ancient grime, and its furniture and accessories blanketed by dust, the drier air made it more tolerable The visitors stood and talked to the young woman who had let them in – the daughter of the old woman on the bed, around 30 years old, with a freckle near the bridge of her nose She wore a pair of jeans adorned on one leg with embroidered flowers that ran from knee to hip The pattern was so gaudy that her visitors looked down at her leg every few sentences Were those peonies? Or something else, it was hard to tell    One couldn’t resist saying: ‘Look at your mother What kind of a daughter are you?’   ‘I’m not in Nanjing, I live out of town’    ‘Out of town? Where?’ asked the youngest of the group    ‘Zhenjiang’    ‘That’s still not far You married out there?’   ‘Yeah’   ‘Well then, you should be “Coming Home Regularly to Visit”’, the young one replied, sharing a smile with the other two over his reference to the song    ‘I – ’

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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poetry

July 2011

Comfort Station

Medbh McGuckian

poetry

July 2011

A witness has said that you raped women And brought them to the barracks to be used by the...

poetry

November 2012

Mr Minotaur

Simon Pomery

poetry

November 2012

Hey Mr Minotaur, so red, so neatly hunchbacked on account of your thick neck, ready to headbutt victims to...

Art

March 2013

Strangely Ordinary: Ron Mueck's art of the uncanny

Anouchka Grose

Art

March 2013

Since the Stone Age, people have been concerned with the problem of how to represent life.   Cave paintings...

 

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