LOS ANGELES REVIEW OF BOOKS: The latest issue of LARB “Alien“,which wades into the unfamiliar. In Greta Rainbow’s “Tourists,” a woman travels to foggy Athens, where she confronts the unknowability of the city and her partner. In Sara Levine’s “Peter and the Women,” Peter (badly, ineptly, inappropriately, indecently) manages the women in his life: his hospice-bound mother and her nurse, as well as his girlfriends and one-night stands. And in Ari Braverman’s “Dogs of the Solar Steppe,” the narrator faces a decade-long punishment, performing domestic labor for a woman called Big Mother. Her former life assumes a “sheen of fantasy,” and the story warns us of “the easy slippage between one state and another.”
Emmeline Clein finds pockets of faith in feminist writer Shulamith Firestone’s ostensibly airless spaces;
Jack Lubin examines the relationship between rap and supervised release;
Charley Burlock interrogates the myths surrounding wildfires, grief, and California’s supposed “gasoline trees”;
Cory Bradshaw describes the art and agony involved in making amateur porn;
Nathan Crompton and Andrew Witt discuss the documentary form and photographing Los Angeles
Become a member for all of that and more—including essays and features by Alexander Chee, Elizabeth Rush, and Tal Rosenberg; interviews with Samual Rutter and Abdulrazak Gurnah;
Plus, an excerpt from Yvan Algabé’s Misery of Love; fiction by Erin Taylor, Devin Thomas O’Shea, and A. Cerisse Cohen
Poetry by Farnoosh Fathi, Paula Bohince, John James, Caitlyn Klum, Sawako Nakayasu, and Harryette Mullen;
Features The Pool at The LINE by Maya Binyam Dark Waters and Sorcerer by Sam Bodrojan
Nonfiction Points of Entry: On Lebanon and broken glass by Mary Turfah Rising from Her Verses: The poetry and politics of Julia de Burgos by Sophia Stewart Mann Men: Exploring an oeuvre of men in crisis by Clayton Purdom Jolted out of Our Aesthetic Skins: Mario Kart and fiction in Las Vegas by Simon Wu Beautiful Aimlessness: The cultural footprint of Giant Robot by Oliver Wang In Its Purest Form: Reading Lolita on its 70th anniversary by Claire Messud Perfect Momentum: How to crash someone else’s car by Dorie Chevlen
Comic Mafalda by Quino, translated by Frank Wynne
Fiction The Tragedy Brotherhood by O F Cieri The Eagle’s Nest by Devin Thomas O’Shea
Excerpt The Heir Conditioner: from Mother Media by Hannah Zeavin
Poetry Minister of Loneliness by Ansel Elkins Iterations by Tracy Fuad Moon over Brooklyn by Daniel Halpern You by Laura Kolbe Third Act by Tamara Nassar Still, my brother’s flag flies by Jorrell Watkins
Features The Pool at The LINE by Maya Binyam Dark Waters and Sorcerer by Sam Bodrojan
Nonfiction Points of Entry: On Lebanon and broken glass by Mary Turfah Rising from Her Verses: The poetry and politics of Julia de Burgos by Sophia Stewart Mann Men: Exploring an oeuvre of men in crisis by Clayton Purdom Jolted out of Our Aesthetic Skins: Mario Kart and fiction in Las Vegas by Simon Wu Beautiful Aimlessness: The cultural footprint of Giant Robot by Oliver Wang In Its Purest Form: Reading Lolita on its 70th anniversary by Claire Messud Perfect Momentum: How to crash someone else’s car by Dorie Chevlen
Comic Mafalda by Quino, translated by Frank Wynne
Fiction The Tragedy Brotherhood by O F Cieri The Eagle’s Nest by Devin Thomas O’Shea
Excerpt The Heir Conditioner: from Mother Media by Hannah Zeavin
Poetry Minister of Loneliness by Ansel Elkins Iterations by Tracy Fuad Moon over Brooklyn by Daniel Halpern You by Laura Kolbe Third Act by Tamara Nassar Still, my brother’s flag flies by Jorrell Watkins
Francesca Peacock roots through the archives for a deeper understanding of scandal and speech in an essay from the LARB Quarterly issue no. 42, “Gossip.”
LA Review of Books (Autumn 2023) – The latest issue features The Funny Thing About Misogyny; The New Scarcity Studies: On Two New Socioeconomic Histories and Endgame Emotions: The Melting of Time, the Mourning of the World…
THE FUNNY THING about misogyny is it’s structured like a joke. Not a very good joke—a groaner, a dad joke. Why are they called “women”? Because they’re a woe to men. Get it? Woman is a container for man; language engenders gender subordination. As Mike Myers recites on stage in his role as a moody slam poet in the thrillingly zany 1993 Hitchcockian send-up So I Married an Axe Murderer, “Woman! Whoa, man. Whoaaaaaa. Man!”
Scarcity: A History from the Origins of Capitalism to the Climate Crisis by CARL WENNERLIND
WATER FALLS FROM the sky, literally. It is the most abundant chemical compound on Earth, and yet many people buy it in plastic bottles. Nestlé and other corporations source water cheaply and add labels that depict something other than heavy-industry and fossil-fuel derivatives, as though you’re drinking straight from a pristine spring. By bottling this natural resource and selling it as a commodity, Nestlé creates a form of scarcity.
Guernica is a digital magazine with a global outlook, exploring connections between ideas, ideals, communities, and individual lives. It rejects binary thinking and conventional wisdom, investing instead in the power of counter-narratives, especially those driven by lived experience. Across fiction, poetry, essays, reportage, criticism, and art, Guernica is a home for established and emerging writers, in conversation with each other. Guernica is committed to global literature — highlighting work from independent presses across the Global South and translating work from every continent into English, and from English into global languages. Going into its twentieth year, Guernica remains a trusted home for incisive, urgent writing and singular perspectives on critical issues of the day.
Perennially curious, eager to reckon with the world head-on, Guernica draws readers into uncharted conversations and traces the complex ligaments connecting culture, politics, art, and ecology. Over twenty years, Guernica has built an impressive record as a place of first publication for important writers and thinkers. Guernica’s ability to deepen our sense of wonder, of responsibility, and of connection is rooted in a core conviction that we must hear from diverse voices and diverse places.
Los Angeles Review of Books
Drawing on literary tradition—and discarding it when necessary—Los Angeles Review of Books dwells in contradiction: the tension between depth and breadth, filth and glamor, destruction and creation, dream and nightmare, that L.A. lives and breathes. LARB launched in 2011 in part as a response to the disappearance of the newspaper book review supplement, and with it, the art of lively, intelligent, long-form writing on recent publications in every genre. LARB has since become a polyvocal cultural force reinventing book criticism for the internet age. It publishes new reviews, essays, and interviews online daily, as well as a print journal, LARB Quarterly, and offers events and programs that connect writers and artists to readers both in Los Angeles and across the globe.
A pillar of West Coast literary culture with national impact, Los Angeles Review of Books astounds with its scope. Its essays, reviews, and interviews are imbued with the irresistible appeal of fresh ideas and the rigor of academic inquiry. As an organization it creates and renews vital space for connection, especially through its innovative publishing workshop. New and accomplished international authors and translators cascade out of LARB, and its coverage of contemporary literature is steeped in style and substance. The commitment to history, critical thought, imagination, and to its eponymous city runs deep.
Mizna
Mizna reflects the literatures of Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA) communities and fosters the exchange and examination of ideas, allowing readers and audiences to engage with SWANA writers and artists on their own terms. It has been a critical platform for contemporary literature, film, art, and cultural production since 1999, publishing a biannual print journal of poetry, fiction, essays, comix, and visual art in addition to producing the Twin Cities Arab Film Festival, the largest and longest running Arab film fest in the Midwest. Recognizing that open cultural spaces are not a luxury but a necessity, Mizna also hosts classes, readings, and community events that offer points of connection between emerging and established SWANA artists and their local Twin Cities community and beyond.
Mizna is an absolute gem of a journal: tightly edited, gorgeously curated, and visually striking. Care and craft float off its pages of beautifully laid-out poetry and lovingly printed images. Mizna is both a grassroots community organization and an esteemed international artistic platform, furthering important intergenerational dialogue within the Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA) diaspora and showcasing thrilling new literature.
n+1
n+1 encourages writers, new and established, to take themselves as seriously as possible, to write with as much energy and daring as possible, and to connect their own deepest concerns with the broader social and political environment—that is, to write, while it happens, a history of the present day. n+1 was founded in New York City, in 2004, by six young writers and editors who wanted to make a magazine that didn’t shy away from difficult and ambitious writing and would take literature, culture, and politics as aspects of the same project. In addition to the triannual print and digital magazine, n+1 also publishes books that expand on the interests of the magazine and programs readings, panels, and events in New York City and across the US.
A distinctive, erudite editorial project overflowing with rigor and generosity, n+1 is both magnet and catapult for intellectually fearless writers. Its uniquely attentive and structural approach to editing has helped cement a reputation as a major site of discovery for new talent, and it indisputably lives on the cutting edge of literary and political discourse. n+1’s ethos is deep investment in writers and their growth. A must-read for critical engagement with pressing issues of the day.
Orion
Orion invites readers into a community of caring for the planet. Through writing and art that explore the connection between nature and culture, it inspires new thinking about how humanity might live on Earth justly, sustainably, and joyously. Founded in 1982, Orion has grown into a quarterly print magazine with in-depth features, poetry, photo essays, science reporting, profiles, book reviews, and interviews. Orion also publishes full-length books as well as original work on its website that probe humanity’s ethical obligation towards and connection to our planet and hosts workshops designed to help writers deepen their relationship with nature and place.
Orion sounds out the depth and breadth of the natural world and our human experiences in it, proving over and again how necessary a publication it is in this age of climate crisis. The magazine is the nucleus of something much larger: a network of readers and contributors bound by a desire to protect and marvel at natural beauty. Each themed issue, replete with illustrations that complement and elevate the text, is a printed object to cherish. To read Orion is to feel the planet as a living organism of which we are a part.
Oxford American
Dedicated to the complexity and vitality of the American South, Oxford American is a national magazine with a regional point of view. It began publishing in 1992 out of Oxford, Mississippi, and strives to reflect the multicultural tapestry of the region as it truly exists–to explore many Souths and trouble familiar, singular stereotypes. Oxford American publishes a wide array of literature written in diverse registers, including investigative reportage, memoir, cultural criticism, fiction, poetry, and book reviews, in addition to an iconic annual Southern music issue. Oxford American celebrates the South’s immense cultural impact on the nation–its foodways, literary innovation, fashion history, visual art, and music–and recognizes that as much as the South can be found in the world, one can find the world in the South.
Oxford American is our most adventurous and authoritative window on the South, pushing beyond headlines to deliver a textured, ever-evolving portrait of its cultural wealth. Drawn in by eye-catching art direction and dazzling editorial letters, readers stay to savor the unique weave of the journalistic with habit-forming fiction and vivid travel writing. A generous intellectual hospitality serves the magazine’s Southern neighbors and a broad national readership all at once. Oxford American is a spring of innovation, honoring tradition while forging something new.
The Paris Review
The Paris Review showcases a lively mix of exceptional poetry, fiction, and nonfiction and delights in celebrating writers at all career stages. Its “Writers at Work” series, hailed by the New York Times as “the most remarkable interviewing project we possess,” offers rich psychological portraits and a trove of practical advice for aspiring writers, and has been a hallmark of the magazine since its inception in 1953. With a quarterly print journal, a website that publishes daily, a digital archive, and a podcast featuring a blend of classic stories and poems, vintage interview recordings, and new work, The Paris Review favors daring, original writing and seeks to be the best kind of party: open, inclusive, and excitingly vibrant.
For seventy years and counting, The Paris Review has remained wonderfully distinctive and sophisticated, never short on chic art direction, impeccable curation, or international flair. The interviews make you ache to have been in the room for the conversation. Readers will find exceptional work by feted writers in every issue, but The Paris Review does not rest on its legacy: it deftly employs its footing as the standard bearer for American literary magazines to uplift talent that hasn’t yet gotten its due.
LA Review of Books (Summer 2023) – In this elemental issue of LARB Quarterly, no. 38: Earth, we found new ways of looking at the planet. Writers were free to take up the theme casually or catastrophically, studying the earth beneath their fingernails or the planet from hundreds of thousands of miles away. We imagined being sealed outside, dreaming of coming home.
ON AN UNUSUALLY rainy evening in Los Angeles this March, at the Thomas Mann House in Pacific Palisades, two investigative reporters from Germany gave a talk about a financial scandal known as “cum-ex.” Against the backdrop of a mid-century modern terrace, its polished cement looking dull and gray in the storm, the pair flashed through a series of slides about international tax embezzlement.
A relatively small drip of funds from the German cultural ministry sometimes supports talks like these in the name of Mann’s legacy. When the capital of German literary life was exiled to Los Angeles around the Second World War, the author built a home that now still hosts salons in the name of democratic cultural exchange.
THE YEAR WAS 1971, the place Łódź. Journalist Hanna Krall was interviewing a pioneering heart surgeon named Jan Moll. The good doctor, apparently unhappy with the outcome of previous interviews, told Krall that everything journalists ever wrote about medicine was nonsense. So, if she wanted to avoid doing the same, he strongly suggested she have her article vetted by a certain cardiologist, a Dr. Edelman, who, said Moll, would correct her mistakes. Krall agreed and arranged a meeting. She sat down with Marek Edelman in the Grand Hotel café, where it took 15 minutes for him to read through her article.
News, Views and Reviews For The Intellectually Curious
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