Literature

“I’ve been lied to my entire life.” Those were the words running through my head the first time I ever smoked weed. Wait, no … those were the words running through my head the first time I ever got stoned. The first time I ever smoked weed, I didn’t actually get stoned, which I understand

Africa is an amazing continent with a rich history. So much of that history exists in the oral traditions and local customs of people on the continent; though much of Africa’s history is understood by many in the West from the gaze of colonization. In order to reckon with the complexities of this very important

Every Ship Gets to Be a Submarine Once Ships in the Desert For Joe and Jake As a child, I never understood why forty years in the desert was God’s punishment for his chosen people. A three-hour hike through Joshua trees changed me. Everything here wants to kill you, he said. I like that. Desert

When you were younger, how did you handle your family’s secrets? Did you share them with others or keep them to yourself? Did you revel in acknowledging how much privilege you had with this information or did you hold them over the ones you loved?  While reading Bisi Adjapon’s debut novel, The Teller of Secrets,

Literary translators are the often overlooked heroes of literature. As an Egyptian who is not as fluent in Arabic as I am in English, there are novels written about my homeland that I wouldn’t have been able to read and finish if they had not been translated into English, not least of which are the

Candyman is based on many influences, the first being Clive Barker’s short story “The Forbidden,” featured in the fifth volume of his Books of Blood horror story collection. Set in Liverpool, England, Candyman is a superintendent for low-income housing. The protagonist, Helen Lyle, encounters him while conducting research on urban folklore. The second influence is

It was just a rumor, but a persistent one. Whispers in the halls of the DC Comics offices; buzz among fans as they gathered at annual conventions. That the legendary Alan Moore, writer and creator of From Hell and V for Vendetta, had written another masterpiece, something no one had ever seen. They’d heard it

Proust Had His Madeleines and I My Doritos Lily King Share article Hotel Seattle In college, Paul would buy a fiesta-sized bag of Doritos on Sunday after Mass and lie stomach down on his bed with his textbooks and notebooks propped up against his pillow and do all his work for the week ahead. He

for Derek Walcott & Sigrid Nama At the end of this sentence, rain will begin.— D.W., “Archipelagos,” Map of the New World  1.  Part of the bannister-railing is absentin spite of its strong metal-rivet moorings.  Termite-eaten, consumed by the sea,I can see its woody skeleton float faraway  among the surf, its salt-scarred coattossing and struggling

Electric Lit is 12 years old! Help support the next dozen years by helping us raise $12,000 for 12 years, and get exclusive merch! I met Rax King outside of a bar on the first truly cold autumn night of the year, for which we both underdressed. We were wearing identical faux-fur lined denim jackets—albeit

Electric Lit is 12 years old! Help support the next dozen years by helping us raise $12,000 for 12 years, and get exclusive merch! Maybe you’re familiar with this story: A young boy in a white wolf costume is sent to his room after he runs around the house, terrorizing his family, screaming at his

Electric Lit is 12 years old! Help support the next dozen years by helping us raise $12,000 for 12 years, and get exclusive merch! The millennial voice in fiction has been oft-discussed now for some time. Some have argued the voice is best seen in the sparse prose of Sally Rooney. Some, that it’s in

My Memory Is Gone, but at Least I Forgot You Electric Lit is 12 years old! Help support the next dozen years by helping us raise $12,000 for 12 years, and get exclusive merch! Signs and Visions What my head was like in 1991 was a rollercoaster. Thoughts went chunk, chunk, chunk, slow, then they

The following satirical column first appeared in Persian on Afghanistan International. The Taliban have faced censure from Twitter users after displacing hundreds of Hazara families from Daykundi and Balkh provinces. In response, the group announced that they have made the necessary arrangements for Hazaras to be permanently resettled in Hell. Khalil-ur-Rahman Haqqani, the Taliban’s minister

Khadija Abdalla Bajaber’s astonishing debut novel, The House of Rust, winner of the inaugural Graywolf Press Africa Prize, arrived in October as if on a magical wave, imbued with an assortment of creatures—human and animal, real and imagined—that populate the city of Mombasa and its surrounding waters. Aisha, fierce and adventurous, sets off on a

Electric Lit is 12 years old! Help support the next dozen years by helping us raise $12,000 for 12 years, and get exclusive merch! I love writing in the wintertime, but what I love even more is when that winter is sunny and brisk, no snow or polar vortices, and I can take walks to

Artists of different styles often collaborate in the creation of their work. When words and images intersect, they can come together to produce something beneficial for both learning and inspiration. As children, many of us experience this in the form of reading picture books, but throughout our adulthood we are often not provided with the

Electric Lit is 12 years old! Help support the next dozen years by helping us raise $12,000 for 12 years, and get exclusive merch! Take a kaleidoscope, peer inside its lens and turn the dial: the jeweled-mosaic pattern within deforms and reforms anew. Asako Serizawa mirrored her debut short story collection Inheritors after this complex