The following is from Lydia Sandgren’s debut novel Collected Works. Sandgren is a trained psychologist and lives in Gothenburg, Sweden. A din of voices rose towards the domed ceiling of the market hall. Coats were unbuttoned, scarves unwrapped, and gloves held in one hand as customers leaned across counters to talk to cashiers. Martin was waiting for his lamb chops to be cut and wrapped...
The following is from Aleksandar Hemon’s The World and All It Holds. Hemon is the author of The Lazarus Project, which was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and three books of short stories: The Question of Bruno; Nowhere Man; and Love and Obstacles. He was the recipient of a 2003 Guggenheim Fellowship and a “genius grant” from the...
The following is from Delia Cai’s Central Places. Cai was born in Madison, Wisconsin, and grew up in central Illinois. She is a graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism and her writing has appeared in BuzzFeed, GQ, The Cut, and Catapult. Her media newsletter, Deez Links, has been highlighted in The New York Times, New York magazine, and Fortune. She is currently a senior correspondent...
The Archivist walks out of the bookand into evening early. On his street, the housesline up like good teeth. The Archivist’s neighbormisses his wife. Thirty years ago, she quitthe house and the twilight swallowed her.Still searching, the neighboropens the belly of the neighborhood cat.The Archivist, mind fastto his research, passes the plundered animal by.Books clutter his seeing. The knife, a...
The Broken Fields Mended These are really the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they are not original with me,If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing, or next to nothing,. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .This is the grass that grows wherever the land is and the water is,This is the common air that bathes...
“Round 3”
The trees are tall here.The men are tall.The men are the colorof the black bark.But men are not trees.Sap is not blood.Bark is not the flesh of men.I do not believe the treescan hear me singing.I touch them.Some vibrations of voice,perhaps, my tenderness.I kiss his mouth.“What is it, Almeyda?”“This is a good place, because it is like the placewe lived before;like our own country.” You rub my body...
In one very real sense, the current war in Ukraine is about language. Vladimir Putin has presented the defense of Russian-speakers in Ukraine as justification for a campaign of cultural and political domination. In an article posted to the Kremlin website last July, he went so far as to compare the institutionalizing of Ukrainian language and culture to “weapons of mass destruction.” Extending...
“My Arms”
“Self-Portrait as a God Who is Loved”