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Scott McCulloch

Scott McCulloch

Scott McCulloch works across prose, essay, and sound. He currently lives in eastern Europe. His first book is Basin: A novel (Black Inc., 2022).

‘Letter from Tbilisi’ by Scott McCulloch

April 2025, no. 474 • 24 March 2025
Before the nearest objects and furthest ideas,before this universe, this life,maybe one at a time or in groups,maybe in a straight line or in utter chaosenters us,rushes into us!What do we possess?Perhaps this second,this second between sleep and waking –like an Edenbetween two countries at war. from Besik Kharanauli’s The Lame Doll (1973)(translated by Timothy Kercher and Ani Kopaliani) ... (read more)

Scott McCulloch reviews 'Anam' by André Dao

July 2023, no. 455 • 24 May 2023
André Dao’s début novel, Anam, deals in the inconsistencies of memory and perception. It is narrated by a writer, a lawyer, an immigrant, a student, a partner, a son, a parent, a grandparent, and many ghosts, yet the motor of the story is Dao’s grandfather, who was sentenced, without charge or trial, to ten years’ imprisonment as a political detainee in the infamous Chi Hoa prison in Vietn ... (read more)

'Letter from Athens' by Scott McCulloch

August 2015, no. 373 • 28 July 2015
Behind Omonoia Square I check into a cheap hotel, one that mainly sleeps prostitutes and their customers. The receptionist is worn – nicotine fingers, few teeth, sharp cheekbones, gaunt features. His flesh is as green as old tattoos. Leading me down the dank hallway, he lifts up his G-Star Raw T-shirt and scratches a large tattoo of a skull heaving angels from its mouth. Men argue on the street ... (read more)

Letter from Tehran by Scott McCulloch

May 2015, no. 371 • 27 April 2015
‘We are the children of death and it is death that rescues us from the deceptions of life.’Sadeq Hedayat Smoke fills the car as my friend Amir and I share a cigarette and hurtle down the highway from Tehran airport to the north of the gargantuan metropolis. Thin crowns of sunlight emerge from the shadowy horizon. The urban sprawl starts to line the highway. Traffic threads into the heaving ma ... (read more)

‘Letter from Ukraine’ by Scott McCulloch

October 2014, no. 365 • 01 October 2014
The guard with the Kalashnikov singles me out from the other passengers on the border to Ukraine. I am leaving the frozen state of Transnistria. He leads me to a small interrogation room. Four more border patrol guards and a translator are in the room. The men fossick through my bags and ask questions. ‘Are you carrying drugs or weapons?’ ‘Do you deal drugs or weapons?’ ‘Are you aware th ... (read more)