Literature

Eight months after my dad died, I flew to Anchorage, Alaska. Feeling untethered from my own life in Brooklyn, I left as often as I could. Grief compelled me to be elsewhere, and elsewhere could have been anywhere I didn’t have a memory of my father. On the descent into Anchorage, I peered out the

Photo by Nicolas Winkler / Flickr  To celebrate the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples on August 9, I invited fifteen Indigenous-minority poets from China to record their readings of their own short poems in their Indigenous-minority mother tongues. Most of the languages presented here are endangered. Some may be never heard of, such

A Wax Man Lit a Fire in My Heart Chloe Aridjis Share article Dialogue with a Somnambulist by Chloe Aridjis Winter has the city in its grip and at three forty-five the streetlights crackle back on, throwing a tenuous light onto everything. Lean days, little hanging to them apart from long shadows and stubborn leaves,

At the start of Ben Purkert’s debut novel, The Men Can’t Be Saved, the protagonist Seth’s copywriting campaign goes viral. It feels enough like success that Seth begins to earnestly refer to himself as an “oracle” and rewatches the resulting ad routinely, treating it like a pump that continues to inflate his already buoyant ego.

It’s the height of summer, the sun is scorching and the air is thick with anticipation. Need some fun plans? We’re taking you on an adventure across the world! Whether you’re lounging by the pool or sunbathing on the beach, you get to choose your own reading journey. Check out our personalized map—there’s a book for

As a reader I want a deeply flawed love interest. A relationship that’s doomed from the start. My first taste of the deeply flawed love interest was the Byronic hero. I learned about him in the classroom. I saw him in the many TV adaptations of English classics that occupied my youth. He was brooding,

In their debut poetry collection I Am the Most Dangerous Thing, Candace Williams collages identity, political and economics matters to investigate the risks and joys of being Black, female and queer in a society where individuals and institutions are too often focused on their destruction. The seriousness of such topics belies the array of poetic

In “Sundae,” the third episode of the recently-released second season of Hulu’s The Bear, chef Sydney Adamu, played by Ayo Edebiri, spends a day-long culinary journey around Chicago as a palate “reset” for the menu she and her business partner, chef Carmine Berzatto, are developing for their restaurant-to-be. The original plan was for Syd and

Questions for My White Therapist Questions for My White Therapist Yes, I’m sure you were wild as a teenager, Linda, much more than my parents, Indians, all about their tradition. Tell me about your private school, Linda. Did you have a uniform? Plaid dress, white shirt, knee-high socks? Did you wear a black skirt? Did

Imagine the worst thing that anyone has ever done to you. Now imagine you have one year to seek justice, revenge, punishment. To make them pay. Of course, you’ll have to confront your torturers. Your nightmares will come back, along with the monsters you’ve keeping at bay. You’ll have to blow up your whole life,

There’s not much ordinary humans love more than ogling rich people. On reality television, on prime time, as they run our governments and corporations, we of humbler socioeconomic status can’t look away from the 1% and the gleam of their golden safety nets. Obviously, there’s vicarious living at play—the question of where we’d go in

I have always loved fairy tales. I love their economy of language and all their archetypes. They were the first stories I remember hearing, and they left their mark on me. I’m sure I’m not alone in this. Consider all that you imagine and remember when you read simple, two-word fairy tale phrases: “dark forest,”

Photo by Daniel Bernard / Unsplash A translator discovers that an author—whom she has translated and admired for so long—was complicit in a past administration’s efforts to silence dissenting writers. What does she find when, following her discovery, she revisits the author’s work? I had set out to write an ode. Oh Jung-hee was the

Photo by h heyerlein / Unsplash Field at Night On a night without you I descend into hellstreetlamps become enemiesSolitary I walk the salt minesmy footprints are saltmeasuring fate saltlike the fires of Sodomand in the middle of the burning streetin the market where the whole world’s for saletiny amulets with your nameseashells with your

Secrets Live Inside My Son’s Ears Joanna Pearson Share article The Oracle by Joanna Pearson You name it, Lola’s found it in someone’s ear. A green Skittle, a watch battery, the tarnished back of a gold earring, a bunched-up bit of mint floss, a Lego head. Insects—yes, of course. Roaches of various sizes, a wasp,

When I was 16, a teacher handed me a copy of The Joy Luck Club because it was a book about “people like me.” At night, in parking lots, guys like me rattled four-bangers, hoping to leave Hangul-like skid marks on blacktops while trying to decipher the art of donuts. Guys like me tried to

The last animal lives on, Ramona Ausubel promises. Loss changes us and leaves its imprint in “a reminder of the moment [we] trampled, gathered, built, destroyed, imagined, loved.” Joy abounds on each page, as does curiosity, playfulness, mischief. This is because the novel is told from the perspective of two teen sisters on an unlikely

Photo by Moussa Kane “A Soul of Small Places,” by Mame Bougouma Diene and Woppa Diallo, made history recently when it emerged as the first jointly conceived story shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing since the first award was made in 2000 to Leila Aboulela. Diene is a Franco–Senegalese American humanitarian based in Pretoria,