“Through a sort of grating irony,” writes Charif Majdalani, Lebanon “remains a sort of model but in the negative sense of the term, because it concentrates in itself all the problems of the contemporary world.” Will it someday regain its role as a positive model?
“Grief sits in the bottom of my lungs — / maybe I cradle it there so I can breathe / every spore, every whiff of a slivering / land and an unfurling chest — / so I can say I have lived through the worst / of the fires,” from “The Air Has Changed,” by Rina Garcia Chua
Climate change, resource depletion, extreme weapons, AI, and more: Richard Heinberg looks at the individual threats composing the unprecedented convergence of risk leading us to a global polycrisis.
“River, sea, blood, / heart-mind to take care of. / Wind, oxygen, sustenance. / Come on brother, wake up,” from “Archaic,” by Ana Gayoso (trans. by Whitney DeVos)
“A person should fold up his world / put his head between his legs / and so observe his existence / say things of worth things that foresee the future / by becoming round / by lowering his head uniting the edges,” from a poem by Susan Afterman (trans. by Linda Stern Zisquit)
“Ulla / took off her glasses / Said she met Tomas Tranströmer / in his house in Sweden / Schubert was playing / The moment he appeared / she’d bowed almost genuflected / as if a saint walked in,” from “Tranströmer,” by Jaspreet Singh
A New Dawn
It’s 2050, and five African nations have surrendered their sovereignty to form a new nation. Alande Mukumbi, the new president of Embo, is determined to prove the naysayers wrong.
The Wayward Children of Asase Yaa
The offspring’s appetites know no end. What’s a mother, any mother—even that mother who nurtures us all—to do?
Photographer Yousef Khanfar recalls his time with Justice Sandra Day O’Connor in this tribute to the first female justice of the United States Supreme Court.
Even though the Latin American novel was never the West’s “Other,” the new Handbook published by Oxford University Press does a marvelous job of producing a sorely needed remapping of the continent’s contributions to the genre.
What are the three ancient Irish sports and how have they played a role in Irish history? Find out this and more in Mraović-O’Hare’s short essay.
8 Questions for Bora Chung
A mini-interview with Bora Chung, whose collection Cursed Bunny was shortlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize.
6 Questions for Patrícia Melo
Five Questions for (and five answers from) Brazilian crime-writer Patrícia Melo, whose new novel, The Simple Art of Killing a Woman, takes on femicide in Brazil, a justice system plagued by inequities, and even deforestation in the Amazon.