Editor’s Note – Lisa McInerney
For our special Climate Issue, which we published last November, I was keen to include a piece about the Amazon. It would have felt strange to put forward a collection of writing engaged with climate without acknowledging the...

Translated from Dari by Dr Zubair Popalzai

Three bells ring in quick succession. Dang, dang, dang. In the blink of an eye, all of the students are standing silently in lines like tamed lambs. I run to make it to the first line, beside Ahmad. Unlike other days, the headteacher goes straight to the platform and quickly reaches for the microphone....

In the dive bar on Vernon Street, Niamh sat on a stool at the counter, sipping a wine that had turned warm. The room was nearly empty, just the group of expats in the corner, playing an endless game of poker around three tables pushed together in an awkward shamrock. She knew most of the players—Mark’s sister Jean and her boyfriend Eddie, the Edinburgh lads, the warhorse cous...

It’s Sunday afternoon, and Róisín is getting ready to leave the house. She usually avoids going to the park on Sundays, but today she has a date with a man she met online. She avoids it because of all the families—it is impossible for Róisín to forget about her own life circumstances while walking in the park at this time of the week. There are too many women who are her age,...