Sarah Moss’s books ‘negotiate the past and imagine the future’: interviewed in this issue, Moss discusses optimism, fridge-magnet clichés, the dangers of nationalist nostalgia, and how to ‘perform love by work’. In ‘Fried Egg’, a discomfiting story by Spanish writer Sabina Urraca (tr. Thomas Bunstead), a woman who has retreated to a haunted house in an attempt to disconnect from society recalls an incongruous childhood in a sinister anti-natal commune. Elvia Wilk’s essay ‘Kids in the Field’ dissects the knotty dissonance inherent in growing up as the child of anthropologists. Johanna Hedva’s Nine Inch Nails hagiography ‘They’re Really Close to My Body’ recalls their own experience of seeking identity and community in the era of dial-up and VHS. Claire-Louise Bennett’s first new fiction in two years is a supermarket reverie ranging from the aisles of a suburban retail park to the velveteen splendour of the Viennese opera. ‘Extremity’ by Taiwanese writer Hsu Yu-Chen (tr. Jeremy Tiang) is an acerbic and poignant story of queer desire and loneliness. Fernanda Melchor’s essay ‘Veracruz with a Zee for Zeta’ (tr. Sophie Hughes) examines life in contemporary Mexico through a series of violent vignettes set in its beaches, nightclubs, supermarkets, streets and homes. Poetry is featured by Zosia Kuczyńska, Sanki Saito (tr. Ryan Choi) and Douglas Herasymuik. The cover is an original work by Samara Scott, also interviewed in the issue. Series of artworks are contributed by Zhang Enli and Lisa Oppenheim.