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Rachel Malik

@rachelmalik.bsky.social

1.1K followers 810 following 1.9K posts

Writes, reads, watches, worries. 1st novel Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves - SL for Walter Scott prize. LL for V S Pritchett Short Story. Second novel, A Fire of Stalks and Feathers, coming soon I hope https://linktr.ee/rachel.malik99

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Rachel Malik @rachelmalik.bsky.social · Nov 14

Some of you will know I've written a novel, Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves, based on the life of my black sheep grandmother, Rene Hargreaves and her partner Elsie Boston.

I was sent this recently by a relative of Elsie's. Elsie far right, elusive as ever, garden theatricals.

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Rachel Malik @rachelmalik.bsky.social · 7h

Horrifying.

Reposted by Rachel Malik

Farah Bakaari @bakaari.bsky.social · 8h

this week i taught YOU CAN’T GET LOST IN CAPE TOWN, and on monday a student asked if zoë wicomb was still alive, and i said, “alive & mighty like a crackling fire!’ i had no idea that she died that same day. i hope this week’s classes honored her mark on me and her service to humane letters

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Rachel Malik @rachelmalik.bsky.social · 7h

Will email.

Rachel Malik @rachelmalik.bsky.social · 10h

It needs to be said

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Rachel Malik @rachelmalik.bsky.social · 13h

Farewell to South African Author Zoë Wicomb (1948–2025)

South African novelist, short story writer, and scholar Zoë Wicomb passed on on October 13, 2025, at her home in Glasgow, Scotland. She was 76 years old. Her death marks an immeasurable loss to Africa...

brittlepaper.com

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Reposted by Rachel Malik

pensouthafrica.bsky.social @pensouthafrica.bsky.social · 17h

We are deeply saddened to learn of the passing of one of our great writers, Zoë Wicomb.

Read her piece “Africa is a Country” here: africasacountry.com/2017/03/the-...

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Rachel Malik @rachelmalik.bsky.social · 21h

Could be useful

Rachel Malik @rachelmalik.bsky.social · 21h

💙💔💔

Zoë Wicomb, 1948—2025, RIP

Zoë Wicomb, the pioneering South African author and academic, has died in her home of Glasgow, Scotland. She was 77 years old. Born in the then Cape Province, Wicomb was raised in Namaqualand, then at...

johannesburgreviewofbooks.com

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Rachel Malik @rachelmalik.bsky.social · 1d

I met her when we were both studying the Linguistics MLitt in 1988-9 at Strathclyde and we were friends ever since. Brilliant writer and undervalued in the UK but not elsewhere. A truly wonderful friend

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Reposted by Rachel Malik

Ian Hunt @ianhunt.bsky.social · 1d

very, very sad to learn of the death of Zoë Wicomb, yesterday. Roger Palmer, her partner, posted this on IG. I cannot think of a writer I have enjoyed (among everything else, she is incredibly witty and has a real sense of comedy) or learned more from. One of the truly greats. RIP.

Zoë Wicomb 23 November 1948 13 October 2025 RIP. White handwriting on a black background.

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Reposted by Rachel Malik

Emily J. Edwards (but witchy) @msemilyedwards.bsky.social · 2d

his name is Gillo Pontecorvo and he directed THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS, one of the greatest anti-fascism, anti-colonialism pieces of art every made

a black and white photo of Gillo Pontecorvo, a middle aged main with dark hair, lighter eyes, wearing a bangin' houndstooth overcoat.

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Rachel Malik @rachelmalik.bsky.social · 2d

Lovely photo. And dog!

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Rachel Malik @rachelmalik.bsky.social · 2d

Post you from a different era

Funnily enough I have no memory of this witchy me

Photo of me a long time ago looking a bit drunk

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Rachel Malik @rachelmalik.bsky.social · 2d

Fabulous books

Rachel Malik @rachelmalik.bsky.social · 3d

Excellent!

Reposted by Rachel Malik

Sardonicus @sardonicus.eu · 3d

Tired Of Reality? Press advertisement for London’s Games Workshop

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Rachel Malik @rachelmalik.bsky.social · 3d

Ditto

Rachel Malik @rachelmalik.bsky.social · 3d

Sorry. Have missed so many things recently. How are you Dorian?

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Rachel Malik @rachelmalik.bsky.social · 3d

One of my students told me about it. Teaching Good Morning Midnight next term.

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Rachel Malik @rachelmalik.bsky.social · 3d

💙💙

the babahuck @tylerhuckabee.bsky.social · 3d

In 2004, Parisian police were conducting a training exercise in the french catacombs and found, after moving past a desk and a tape playing audio of snarling dogs, a fully functional movie theater and bar. When they returned 3 days later, the equipment was gone, with a note: “Do not try to find us.”

Members of the force's sports squad, responsible
- among other tasks - for policing the 170 miles of tunnels, caves, galleries and catacombs that underlie large parts of Paris, stumbled on the complex while on a training exercise beneath the Palais de Chaillot, across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower.
After entering the network through a drain next to the Trocadero, the officers came across a tarpaulin marked: Building site, No access.
Behind that, a tunnel held a desk and a closed-circuit TV camera set to automatically record images of anyone passing. The mechanism also triggered a tape of dogs barking, "clearly designed to frighten people off," the spokesman said.
Further along, the tunnel opened into a vast 400 sq metre cave some 18m underground, "like an underground amphitheatre, with terraces cut into the rock and chairs".

There the police found a full-sized cinema screen, projection equipment, and tapes of a wide variety of films, including 1950s film noir classics and more recent thrillers. None of the films were banned or even offensive, the spokesman said.
A smaller cave next door had been turned into an informal restaurant and bar. "There were bottles of whisky and other spirits behind a bar, tables and chairs, a pressure-cooker for making couscous," the spokesman said.
"The whole thing ran off a professionally installed electricity system and there were at least three phone lines down there."
Three days later, when the police returned accompanied by experts from the French electricity board to see where the power was coming from, the phone and electricity lines had been cut and a note was lying in the middle of the floor: "Do not," it said, "try to find us."

Rachel Malik @rachelmalik.bsky.social · 3d

So much on. Am hoping to see this show this week

Postures: Jean Rhys in the Modern World - Curated by Hilton Als - Exhibitions - Michael Werner Gallery, New York, London, Beverly Hills

Since 1963, Michael Werner Gallery has worked with some of the most important European and American artists of the 20th Century.

www.michaelwerner.com

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Reposted by Rachel Malik

Marie Le Conte @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · 3d

WELL THEN IT'S NOT MEANINGFUL IS IT, NICK www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

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Reposted by Rachel Malik

Levi Stahl @levistahl.bsky.social · 3d

Issue 4 of my newsletter, this one a commonplace book issue full of quotes about parents and children, went out yesterday. Come for one of Waugh’s children calling him a sadist, stay for a comedian reflecting on making out in cemeteries as a teen.

Levi Stahl @levistahl.bsky.social · Aug 25

I started a newsletter, friends.

this-not-that.ghost.io

This, Not That

Reccomending some good books, movies, music, and more

this-not-that.ghost.io

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Reposted by Rachel Malik

Joanna Pocock @joannapocock.bsky.social · 3d

This book! I read Simone de Beauvoir’s THE IMAGE OF HER in one sitting. Absolutely phenomenal. Translated beautifully by @lauren_elkin_
Imagine some of the psychological and linguistic slippages of Virginia Woolf with the acuity of de Beauvoir as she describes the inner workings of a bourgeois (1)

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Reposted by Rachel Malik

Sardonicus @sardonicus.eu · 4d

Derwent village’s drowned church in Ladybower Reservoir, Derbyshire

two people looking at a church spire above the water level of a reservoir

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