On Language by John Grant (RT#51)

Rough Trade Books 2023 ISBN 9781914236242 Acqn 33182

Pb 14x21cm 24pp £7.99

As one of the most strikingly original lyricists going, it's entirely unsurprising that John Grant has a
life-long interest in language and languages-from the academic solace he found in his school
days upon discovering his talent for German, through to his love of Russian and the Icelandic
language of his current home, Grant has found succour, relief and stimulation in words and how
they work. In this fascinating interview with the writer Will Burns, John Grant's passion for
language provides the foundations for hilarious and heartbreaking digressions on his own life, on
politics, on history, on music and much more--John Grant On Language functions as a compelling
and unique portrait of an artist in, and through, words.

John Grant is without question one of the most celebrated singersongwriters of the past decade.
His debut solo LP Queen Of Denmark was voted MOJO magazine's Best Album of 2010 and his
profile has continued to rise ever since through a series of rapturously received releases that
combine acutely melodic chamber-pop with darkly glittering dance music centred on synth-pop
and disco. Against this brooding and inventive backdrop and channelled through his glorious
dulcet baritone, Grant unleashed autobiographical laments and diatribes, as beautiful and
intimate as they were caustic and savagely funny. 2013's Pale Green Ghosts helped earn him
Attitude Magazine's Man of the Year award and, in what is perhaps his biggest accolade so far,
an International Male Solo Artist nomination at the 2014 BRIT Awards. His most recent album,
Boy From Michigan was released in Summer 2021 via Bella Union.

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We are but nothing - No somos nada by Fernando Sdrigotti (RT#52)
Rough Trade Books 2023 ISBN 9781914236259 Acqn 33183
Pb 14x21cm 40pp £7.99

We Are But Nothing takes place during a funeral in Argentina, when the unnamed narrator meets
some of his old school friends after a long time away. What is a sad albeit boring occasion serves
here as an excuse to explore the drudgery of our hyperconnected present and the thin line that
divides life and death. We Are But Nothing is at times a hyper-realist fly-on-the-wall survey of
human behaviour and at times a fantastical satire about the meaninglessness of life. Originally
written in English and translated into Spanish by its author. Please DO NOT use the words
'magical' and 'realism' around We Are But Nothing.

Fernando Sdrigotti was born in Rosario, Argentina in 1977. His fiction and critical writing has
appeared widely online and in print, and has been translated into French, Italian, Turkish,
Norwegian, Arabic, Bosnian and Spanish. He is the author of several books, including Shitstorm
(Open Pen, 2018), Grey Tropic (Dostoyevsky Wannabe, 2019) and Jolts (Influx Press, 2020). He
lives in London.

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Nature Spotting by Russell Weekes (RT#53)
Rough Trade Books 2023 ISBN 9781914236266 Acqn 33184
Pb 14x21cm 36pp col ills £7.99

In 2010 the artist Russell Weekes noticed a horse chestnut branch that had fallen onto the
pavement by his feet. There was something about the structure of this branch that suggested a
dog and sparked the daily exercise that Weekes calls 'nature spotting'--a simultaneously
meaningful and mundane activity that renders the quotidian material of the world--leaf fall, moss,
lichen, bits of bark--weighted with new meaning. These items become signs, cyphers and tokens
of suggestion, creating connections in the imagination of the alert observer and loading the
everyday with its own unique language.

Russell Weekes was born in Hertford, grew up in Nottingham, and currently lives in South
London. Through the use of observations and misreadings, his work attempts to focus attention
on easily overlooked aspects of everyday life.

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Loving Characters into Gas Station Snacks by Sara Ivanyi & Katinka Van Gorkum (RT#54)
Rough Trade Books 2023 ISBN 9781914236273 Acqn 33185
Pb 14x21cm 52pp £7.99

In the early winter of 2019, Katinka van Gorkum and Sara Ivanyi met online after creating
personal ads on a text-based dating app called Lex. Without knowing who the other person was
or what they looked like, they started writing to each other on a daily basis. This exchange is
presented here as a kind of un-edited textual performance in which the act of language functions
under the most intense pressure-how can we perform our 'selves' only through the use of words?
How do the negotiations of the early stages of friendship, romance, sexuality, hold up under these
conditions? How does language itself?

Katinka van Gorkum was raised in Barendrecht, a suburb of Rotterdam where people remove the
leaves from their gardens with a vacuum cleaner. As an artist and writer, she investigates the
interior world of humans through the private domain. Her life and practice are intimately
intertwined, her living space becoming a site of experiment, for example when she moved the
bedroom door of her Brussels' apartment to a museum and lived without her door for several
months.

Sara Ivanyi was born in Budapest when there was still an iron curtain and moved to Amsterdam
at a young age. This experience has led her to question the notion of boundaries in every sense
and drew her to the idea of language being an alien or parasitic life form. As a poet and artist she
is interested in many things. Her poetry has been featured on Hotel, and her book of antilipos
HER/HIM was published by Dark Editions (2022). She is also a member of an art-science
collective that keeps changing its name and examines collective thinking through algorithmic
performance and spreadsheets.

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