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

Portfolio

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.

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

Blog post by Slava Faybysh

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

Review by Patrick Autréaux Translated from the French by Tobias Ryan

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

Fiction by Emmelie Prophète Translated from the French by Aidan Rooney

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

Blog post by Nicole Cooley

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

Blog post by Margaret Everton

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

Essay by Nahil Mohana Translated by Katharine Halls

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...

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