Looking for Cavafy in Istanbul
When I first set out to find C.P. Cavafy’s maternal home five years ago, my friends and I figured heading to the local church in Neochori (present day Yeniköy) would yield the best results. The Alexandrian Greek poet had spent three years of his life, from 1882 to 1885,
Macedonio, Argentina’s Man of Letters
Most long-dead literary circles have unsung heroes, authors who were important when they were alive but have since fallen through the cracks of history for one reason or another. Macedonio Fernandez is one such figure—he is now almost completely unknown outside of his native Argentina, and even in Argentina
3 Chapbook Reviews: Beauties of the Web
While publishing online can mean that a text is more easily widely circulated, the dedication that goes into presenting a chapbook online often goes unsung. For July, I read three e-chapbooks, and each of them had stunningly beautiful covers and design that enhanced the reading experience.
Old Stories, New Ballets
In recent years, the narrative ballet has reemerged, and with it, stories both forgotten and classic have appeared on the stage. Choreographers have drawn from Russian novels, Shakespeare, and modernism itself.
Language as a “Banner of Identity”: An Interview with Mara Faye Lethem
We discuss the short novel Brandes’s Decision with translator Mara Faye Lethem. The novel was originally written by Eduard Márquez in Catalan and published in 2006 and was recently brought to an English-reading audience by Hispabooks, a Madrid-based publisher.
Food in Cuba (and PARADISO at 50)
Angshuman Das’s excellent series on food writing has made me think about the role cuisine plays in Cuban literature and about the meals I ate when I visited the island in 2012 to do research for my dissertation.
Review: ENGLISH KILLS by Monica Wendel
The poems in Monica Wendel’s chapbook are marked by quick dissolves, scenes suddenly opening onto new scenes. The prose poem “Blue” flickers back and forth between “a diner where the waitresses wear their hair swooped up” and a dream of rowing through New York Harbor at night.
“Honey, I rode every pig track here to yonder”: Bookmobiles in Southern Appalachia
Madison County, North Carolina contains roughly 450 square miles of the oldest mountains in the world, with sharply pitched forested slopes, grassy balds, rocky ridges, and swift creeks typical of the Southern Appalachian highlands.
Taking Something Unconventional and Making It Beautiful: An Interview with Elisabeth Jaquette
Elisabeth Jaquette is a prolific writer and translator of Arabic. Her translations have appeared in the Guardian, Asymptote, multiple anthologies, and other places. She holds an MA from Columbia University and was a CASA Fellow at the American University of Cairo.
Living Between Languages: Notes on Language and Loss
I was seventeen years old when I started working at the front desk of a beach resort in my coastal city in Brazil and began to teach myself my first sentences in English. In the tourism industry, English was currency, and as such I wanted to earn it.