Grooming Style
A conversation on how the Alt Lit scene’s documentation of sexual violence became a style of supposed sincerity
Misery Loves Company
In László Krasznahorkai’s latest work, the apocalypse has arrived and we’re living in it.
Precarious Verse
...trunk wouldn't die." During the course of his captivity he "dented the trunk's tight lid," "pounded the wheel wells with a tire iron" and just generally "banged on and on."...
Prescription Strike
...initiatives into a single operation bent on their demise, every health worker a potential spy. Meanwhile, Pakistani children die of polio and Americans ask, “Why do Pakistanis hate us? We’re...
Slugs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails
...should a young person be compelled to “respect them?” No. For example, why should a child respect his principal if that principal allows a student, teacher, coach, school resource officer,...
What Even is African Literature Anyway
...rant. Completely agree about Senghor and Césaire! Love the latter; can hardly even read the former ("Femme Noire" makes me want to die. Negritude such a boys' club). Fidelity is...
Alone Again Or
...and wept,” “until I'm happy again”, “strange and awful,” “ways to die,” “on and on,” “outside,” “walked out,” “never” (in two stories), “nobody ever,” “nothing” (in three stories), “uglier than...
She Mad and She Magic
...and politically. Black women’s anger is raw and immediate, imbued with the roughness of having survived multiple oppressions, demanding visibility when America would rather we die quietly. And that’s the...
Myth of the Garbage Patch
...effects of this dispersed waste all the time. Hundreds of thousands of marine birds, fish, reptiles, and mammals die annually from ingesting or becoming entangled in marine debris. Sharks, hungry...
Fun
...a later time. 16. Fun is a wasteland where desire goes to die. 17. Pleasure is greater than fun. 18. After the revolution, fun will have you. 19. It’s all...
Little Boxes on a Hillside
...commuting, it turns out, makes people incredibly unhappy—not to mention fatter, sicker, and more likely to die young. Roads are designed so people can drive as quickly and mindlessly as...
When It Takes Root in the Heart: A Conversation with Fady Joudah
Fady Joudah is a Palestinian-American poet, translator, and physician. His latest collection, titled simply […], was written in the months following Israel's escalation of genocide in Gaza—which killed many of Joudah's family members.
This Is Not the Deal
...suggests that this, the OED’s first cited example of the term, is actually itself citing an earlier usage. It comes as no surprise, then, that there are uses earlier than...
Beyond the Valley of 1984
...how little he listened. This is an example of a very particular conceit, one becoming common among young novelists, in which it seems any introductory exposition has been removed and...
Study Abroad
...Mercifully, sex work as work is a concept Venkatesh understands. But old prejudices die hard, and he frequently refers to the women who share their secrets with him as “selling...
Death Immortalized
...now become so familiar and habitual as to almost go without saying. “I’d like to die on Mars,” says Elon Musk. “Just not on impact.” For as long as any...