This is The Writer's Voice, new fiction from The New Yorker.

I'm Deborah Treesman, fiction editor at The New Yorker.

On this episode of The Writer's Voice, we'll hear Harry Kunzru read his story, A Transparent Woman,

from the July 6th and 13th, 2020 issue of the magazine.

Kunzru is the author of five novels, including Gods Without Men and White Tears.

A new novel, Red Pill, from which this story was adapted, will be published in September.

Now here's Hari Kunzru.

A Transparen't... Now here's Harry Kunzru. A transparent woman.

Her family was happy about it.

It was a big deal to get one of the new places.

The entire district was a building site, a showcase for the socialist future.

She reckoned she had about five more years before she turned into one of the horrible sows

who gave her the evil eye from behind their net curtains when she walked past with her friends.

Five years of life.

At weekend she'd take the train to Alexander Platt's and hang around with the other teenagers.

Sooner or later, they were always chased away by the police.

She never got on at school and left to become an apprentice at a textile factory in a town just outside Berlin,

which improved things because she could move out of the family home and live

in a hostel. It was okay at first, but the boredom was like acid. She had a bad temper and

sometimes got into fights. One day some old Pishnapp's cabbage man at the factory called her

into an office and gave her an official warning.

She already had a mark against her because she didn't want to join the free German youth.

...