Featuring a mixture of new and unpublished prose and poetry works from a range of writers, Untitled, 2020 has been published by The London Magazine to mark the periods of lockdown experienced around the globe over the past year.
The collection of works also includes a previously unpublished diary extract written by renowned writer and literary figure, Samuel Beckett. The extract is taken from Beckett’s ‘German Diaries’, detailing his experience of travelling to Potsdam in 1937 to view art and architecture. Beckett’s dry humour and aesthetic interests are evident throughout the short extract, and will pique the curiosity of readers.
The contemporary pieces in Untitled, 2020 are impressive, speaking to the shared circumstances of lockdowns and themes of isolation while reflecting on introspective gleanings. One prose work of particular note is Stephanie Sy-Quia’s ‘My Father’s Coat’. The author writes of her experience in lockdown staying with her partner’s family in Surrey, though she longs to be with her own family who live in California. She is able to maintain a feeling of connection with them through the titular father’s coat, which reminds her of childhood memories, with Sy-Quia’s vivid prose allowing the details of her imagery to appear in the reader’s mind. The essay succinctly relates the feeling of pining fostered as a result of being away from one’s family: ‘Having not suffered from homesickness for the past decade, it now afflicts me with a fierce and feral ache. It is not homesickness for a place, but for them’.
‘Diaries in Lockdown’, written by Suzi Feay, also chronicles the author’s experience over the past year, though the process of keeping a diary is a longtime hobby for her. The piece is written with a sense of intimacy and casualness, allowing readers to feel as though they are a confidant and privy to Feay’s thoughts and feelings, emulating the form of a diary. The prose work concludes with a reflection on the inaccuracy of our memories as we recall them, with this being contrasted with the more personal objectiveness facilitated by diaries.
A pertinent publication of works that ruminate on the events of 2020 masterfully blended with earlier compositions that speak to our current times, Untitled, 2020 is available to purchase now.
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