After a couple of weeks’ delay we have a brand new edition of Conversations. Here, I speak with a personal favourite writer, documenter, Instagram specialist, and erstwhile X rage — Darran Anderson. Anderson is an essayist and memoirist writing at the intersections of culture, politics, urbanism, and technology, has been recognised for his debut Imaginary Cities: A Tour of Dream Cities, Nightmare Cities, and Everywhere in Between (2015), a hugely ambitious analysis of real and imagined cities throughout history, and Inventory (2020), his searing memoir about growing up in poverty in Derry. Anderson was awarded the Windham-Campbell Prize in 2023.

This is the first part of the conversation. The second will be published next Friday.