
Crisis and talismans. The threaded objects of Lia Purpura front an issue intent on noticing, holding, and putting forward.

To Never Have Risked Our Lives: A Portfolio of Central American and Mexican Diaspora Writing
A twisted part of the American dream is the idea that here in the U.S. you can erase your past and “start over.” Through this portfolio we can do the opposite: reclaim the past, reawaken memories, and connect with a new generation of people who are moving across borders.
From AGNI 102
The Purple House
My Mother Becomes a Pond
Stone of Hope
The Fall of Rome
I place the initial snick cautiously, beside a minuscule vein for strength and some ballast for my knot. I start at the terminal leaf, gently piercing the fine-grained cuticle.
Featured
On Translation, Bilingualism, and Squid Game
I was almost two, and it was altogether a more innocent time, when my family immigrated from Kyiv to Chicago. Reagan was the president-elect, and Disco Demolition Night in Comiskey Park only a few months in the rearview. In those days, my babblings came out in Russian...
Placenta-Book: On Água Viva by Clarice Lispector
Agua-viva means jellyfish in Portuguese. More often than not, we don’t see jellyfish, we feel them: they sting our legs or arms, they burn our backs and stomachs, their acid licks at wounds that we never knew we had.
Cécé’s Cell Phone
I felt Fénelon’s hands on my shoulder and pushed him away violently. He had traces of tears on his sunken cheeks from lamenting his lost virility. He was in a bad way. I took all his money; I left him only...
Talking Trash
If I was writing about trash, I needed to investigate its history. The Covanta incinerator in Newark burns five miles from my house. Beside my office in Queens is the landfill buried under Flushing Meadows Park. I learned that the U.S. is the world’s largest producer of garbage...
The Consolation of Byron
Snowed in during a storm in January 2024, I found myself reading Byron. I was idle and concerned about early signs of dementia in my dad, and needed something to “withdraw myself from myself,” as Byron once proclaimed was his motive for writing. I knew and liked some of Byron’s shorter poems, and was familiar with his “mad, bad, and dangerous” persona...
Details of a War: Gaza, October 2024 - February 2025
On the 6th of October—after almost a year of war—tanks surround Jabalia camp for the second time, attacking hospitals and preventing anyone from entering or leaving. People flood into our area laden with belongings...