The Persona as a Portal in The January Children

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In Safia Elhillo’s 2017 poetry collection, both the historical figure of Abdelhalim Hafez and his personification seem to serve as an umbilical cord connecting the speaker to her heritage as she navigates the trauma of immigration.

Crossing Boundaries in Whereabouts

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Jhumpa Lahiri’s new novel beautifully showcases the way we experience life: the moments that are most important—the turning points—are often only realized in retrospect.

The Soul of a City with No Soul

Las Vegas is a feat of tremendous sleight of hand. What Diofebi shows in his debut novel, out this week, is all the thousands of machinations happening in the background, producing what is ultimately a glorious illusion.

The Wild Fox of Yemen by Threa Almontaser

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Almontaser’s collection espouses neither sentimental nostalgia nor doomed isolation . . . these poems are poignant and melancholic, sometimes tragic, sometimes hilarious, and always filled with beauty.

Language of Return

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I imagine there is something about my grandmother that would have resisted translation. The best way I know to understand her, the site where my retina and hers overlap, is in language.

Beauty and Crystal Boys

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Pai Hsien-Yung’s 1983 novel is a story of exile: the narrative centers itself on the transience of home, and the chaos of the birth-family, in order to argue that home does not come from location, but from aesthetics—from beauty.

The Twilight Zone by Nona Fernandez

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In her new novel, Nona Fernandez delves into the fluctuations of memory, highlighting the media and society’s role in what we remember.

Reading Rilke in Lockdown

I’ve found myself turning to Rainer Maria Rilke’s poems again and again over the last year, his words giving me space to release myself from the prison of my own feelings, and offer an alternative, even curative, way to live in the world.

The Stories Inherited in Speak, Okinawa

Elizabeth Miki Brina traces the stories of her mother and father and delves into the relationships between their homes to examine her inheritances and figure out how they’ve manifested within her.

Milk Blood Heat by Dantiel Moniz

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In this debut story collection, the reader feels the story in their body as they read; Moniz makes us look directly at the source of trauma in order to share the pain.