Photo: A still from “This is America” by Childish Gambino Poet Ladan Osman considers how Childish Gambino obliterates rooted acts of black optimism and expression, leading us to understan…
Essays
Photo: Shevaun Williams & AssociatesAfter watching the dance adaptation of her story “Sand” at the 2018 Puterbaugh Festival, Erpenbeck delivered the following keynote, in which she in…
This year’s fiftieth-anniversary Puterbaugh Festival of International Literature & Culture set a new high-water mark in the cultural life of the University of Oklahoma, in a series already disting…
The Eclipse, by Viktor Ash. This wall painting at Urban Spree Berlin was part of a pop-up exhibition to celebrate the ten-year anniversary of Ash’s Astronaut /Cosmonaut…
A monument to Don Quixote in Tandil, Argentina. Photo: Carlos Barengo/PixabayChina is so peculiarly revealing in its essence that few authors can approach it without unveiling their inner…
Still from Still Tomorrow (2016), dir. Jian Fan, produced by Youku Tudou, Inc. She is a subsistence farmer with a ninth-grade education and a disabled person with spe…
left Claribel Alegría, 1953. right Flakoll-Alegría family, 1959. Left to right: Patricia, Erik, Claribel, Karen, Maya, Bud. Photos used by permission of Eri…
photo: three-shots/pixabayAs readers, we all carry prejudices, but acknowledging a wider range of normals makes the difference between “I don’t understand your normal” and “I refuse to re…
Editorial note: This sidebar appears with Erik Gleibermann’s essay “Inside the Bilingual Writer” in the same issueMarlon James’s use of Jamaican Patois in his 2015 Booker Prize–winning novel…
Daniel Alarcón, Julia Alvarez, Sandra Cisneros, Edwidge Danticat, Junot Díaz, Ha Jin, Esmeralda Santiago, and Gary Shteyngart. Illustration by Jen Rickard BlairThrough a series of inter…
Bonifacio Global City, Manila, 2015. photo: jason reblando In 2015, while on a Fulbright research fellowship in the Philippines, I went on a walking tour of Intramuros, the famed walled city in M…
The missing persons bulletin board at Navotas City Police Station in Metro Manila, June 2017. Photo courtesy of the authorDo so many opportunities to bear witness only create opportunitie…
photos: shevaun williams & associates After being visibly moved by dance adaptations of four of her poems, Dr. Nelson delivered the following keynote to the packed audience in attendance,…
A statue of a young Carver at the George Washington Carver National Monument. photo: jinx!/flickrHayan Charara, a poet, editor, essayist, and children’s book author, nominated Marilyn Nelson…
The Seer, by Maia Cruz PalileoA writer undergoes a transformation while overcoming a series of obstacles as she works to reunite her mother with her mother’s siblings in the Philipp…
Mohammed Ghani Hikmat’s Save Iraqi Culture sculpture, featuring ancient Sumerian cuneiform script, is located in Baghdad’s Mansour District. The figure with multiple hands represents the diff…
illustration: jen rickard blairOn the fiftieth anniversary of Richard Brautigan’s Trout Fishing in America, an Iranian writer (and devoted Brautigan reader) considers how he, perhaps even…
Border village in winter, Turkey. Photo: Nedret BenzetReturning to the Bulgaria of her childhood, the author chronicles the insidious damage that a culture of hard borders inflicted on its su…
The kultrún is the quintessential Mapuche instrument. A drum of carved wood and animal hide, it is traditionally played by a machi, or Mapuche shaman, during rituals and celebrations. Al…
Jaume Plensa’s Tolerance statue and Rosemont Pedestrian Bridge, Houston, Texas / Photo by Patrick FellerIf a profligate comes to you with news, make sure you understand it (…
Photo: Daniel Tellman / FlickrSocieties venerate their storytellers almost as much as the stories. We talk about the wonders that stories can create, the ways they can change the…
An old Japanese maple in the Japanese garden at the Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis / Photo by Kent Burgess thewaysofthegarden.squarespace.comIn this brief essay, poet and translator H. L. Hi…
Photo by C. P. Ewing / FlickrRumi remains the most popular poet in America today. To many who claim to be “spiritual but not religious,” his poems represent direct spiritual connection with…
Agostino Arrivabene (b. 1967, Italy), Androgynous, 2016, oil, gold leaf on linen, 50x40cm. Courtesy of the artist.Religion is at its best when it becomes a countercultural force;…
Photo: Fardo Dopstra (Fardodopstra.com)The tradition of toast-giving has followed my family through centuries and continents. This essay tells the tale of one family’s survival and the toasts—poig…
