The Emma Press: 6 books

In rural Wales, wandering the dunes west of Pwllheli, John Fuller has composed a letter on the subject of travel: warning against it, wondering about people’s presences and absences, and serenely admiring ‘the Wales of sheep and song’. His correspondent, young Andrew Wynn Owen, replies with...

Each day of 2015 Jan Carson wrote a short story on the back of a postcard and mailed it to a friend. Each of these tiny stories was inspired by an event, an overheard conversation, a piece of art or just a fleeting glance of something worth thinking about further. In this collection of highlights,...

The voices of humans and animals, living and dead, clamour for the reader’s attention in Meat Songs. Headlice roam their strange habitat, a severed pig’s head questions an undergraduate’s choices, and packaged meat products are ignoring the future.

In Carol Rumens's Bezdelki, small things like the English meaning of her Russian title help to shore up the memory of a life. These elegies for a late partner, written in memory of Yuri Drobyshev, explore the principle that death, even for atheists, isn’t purely loss. Instead, a kind of conversation...

In an island kingdom, Don Armando dreams of a dragon-slaying adventure like heroes used to perform. And in a laboratory in a gleaming city, scientist Haplo Nous tinkers towards an atom bomb. Past, present and future collide in Andrew Wynn Owen’s rip-roaring tale, full of rhythmical fireworks and...

Travelling from one place to another is never as simple as getting from A to B. Whether you’re sailing in a stately cruise liner or running for a grimy commuter train, your mode of transport affects the way you look at the things around you. Travel can even make us question who we are at home: will...