Autumn 2023

Autumn seems like a time for facing up to things. Perhaps it’s the proliferation of folk and religious festivals honouring ancestors or negotiating with the dead that fall at this time of year — reckonings with the past, or with things outside our control. In autumn, we look over our shoulder in the hope of making sense of what’s to come.

Of course, facing up to things is not something that human beings tend to be very good at. Who amongst us hasn’t lingered far longer than we should in some intractable situation simply because the alternative — any alternative — seems impossible or frightening?

The pieces in our autumn issue rush at this fear head on. Can old traditions be continually reimagined and given new meaning? Is it possible to look squarely at the past and record it unsparingly? What makes us persist in the face of failure? And how do we even know what we want or what we like in the first place?

Autumn may be a time of looking back, but it’s also a time of moving forward. The past has a claim on us, but it’s not absolute.