Ciaran Carson - Exchange Place

Again a flash of lightning: he needed to write. He looked in the briefcase and found a pen. Nice vintage Waterman, marbled celluloid. He unscrewed the cap and began to write. The pen suited his hand well, it could have been his own pen, and it wrote first time, the writing both familiar and foreign. He kept on writing. The writing kept on, words appearing from nowhere.

The author and publisher gratefully acknowledge permission to include the following copyright material

BENJAMIN, WALTER, extracts from ‘Stamp Dealer’, One-Way Street and Other Writings (first published as ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’) Penguin Books 2008. This selection and translation first published in Penguin Modern Classics 2009. Translation copyright © J.A. Underwood, 2008, 2009.

BENJAMIN, WALTER, reprinted by permission of the publisher from The Arcades Project by Walter Benjamin, translated by Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin, pp. 84, 112, 114, Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1999 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Originally published as Das Passagen-Werk , edited by Rolf Tiedemann, Copyright © 1982 by Suhrkamp Verlag.

BENJAMIN, WALTER, Walter Benjamin’s Archive: Images, Texts, Signs, translated by Esther Leslie (Verso, London, 2007), reproduced by kind permission of Verso Books.

BENJAMIN, WALTER, reprinted by permission of the publisher from Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, Volume 1, 1913–1926 , edited by Marcus Bullock and Michael W. Jennings, pp. 478, 479, 491 Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1996 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Originally published as Das Passagen-Werk , edited by Rolf Tiedemann, Copyright © 1982 by Suhrkamp Verlag.

COCTEAU, JEAN, Mon premier voyage: tour du monde en 80 jours (Editions Gallimard, 1936); Round the World Again in 80 Days , translation by Stuart Gilbert, 1937 (Tauris Parke, 2000) © Editions Gallimard 1936, reproduced by kind permission of Editions Gallimard.

FROST, ROBERT, The Notebooks of Robert Frost , edited by Robert Faggen (Harvard University Press, 2007), reproduced by kind permission of the Estate of Robert Lee Frost.

MCKEE, DAVID, extract from ‘Spaceman’, The Extraordinary Adventures of Mr Benn by David McKee (Hodder Children’s Books, 2009) first published in the UK by Hodder Children’s, an imprint of Hachette Children’s Books, 338 Euston Road, London, NW1 3BH.

MODIANO, PATRICK, Rue des boutiques obscures (Editions Gallimard, 1978), © Editions Gallimard 1978; La petite bijou (Editions Gallimard, 2001), © Editions Gallimard 2001, reproduced by kind permission of Editions Gallimard.

SACKS, OLIVER, Migraine (Picador, 1995), the information on migraines owes much to Sacks’ publication.

SHERRIFF, ROBERT C. and F.L. GREEN, ‘Odd Man Out’, Three British Screenplays , edited by Roger Manvell (Methuen, 1950), reproduced with permission of Curtis Brown Group Ltd, London on behalf of the Estate of R.C. Sherriff. Copyright © R.C. Sherriff, 1947.

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