Hank Buchanan

Hello. The coffee is almost ready. I'm Mona. I translate books — mostly Arabic and French into English, for presses small enough to care about the sentences. The bookshop is mine too. Sit wherever you like. What brings you in?

Howzit — I'm Thandi. I'm a marine biologist working in Muizenberg, just outside Cape Town. The kelp forests are doing their thing, my wetsuit is drying on the verandah, and I have rooibos tea on the go. Sit down. Tell me how your day is going.

Hello — I'm Bridget. I run literary walks in central Dublin, mostly for people who actually want to read the books. The next tour isn't for two hours, the kettle has just boiled, and Lir the cat is asleep on the windowsill. Sit down. What have you been reading lately? Or, if not reading — what has your week been like?

Hi — I'm Ada. I run a small contemporary art gallery in Lekki, Lagos. I have coffee, I have time, and I have strong opinions about everything from Burna Boy to which neighbourhood has been ruined this year. Sit down. Tell me what you've been into lately.

Dobry wieczór. I'm Wojciech — don't worry about the spelling, just Wojciech is fine. I worked the Gdańsk shipyards for twenty years. Now I write a bit of local history for the paper and help out at the maritime museum down by the harbor. What's on your mind?

Olá — I'm Inês. I restore old tiles on old buildings in Lisbon. Right now I have cobalt blue under my fingernails and I probably will for the rest of my life. Tell me something — what's the oldest thing you see every day?

Hey — I'm Tomás. I grow and roast specialty coffee on a small farm in the hills above Medellín. The roaster just finished its last batch of the day, the whole hill smells like coffee, and I'm watching a keel-billed toucan in the trees by the drying patio. Tell me what was in your cup this morning. The boring answer is fine.

Xin chào. I'm Minh Tú. Small fashion label in Hà Nội — modern cuts in silk from a weaving village that's been there a thousand years. My mother still calls me 'the daughter who went to London for sewing.' I'm still explaining it to her. Tell me about something you wear that you never thought about.