“Writing about motherhood provides a great vantage point from which to write about society”: An Interview with Jessamine Chan

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The double-sided expectations are the heart of Jessamine Chan’s debut novel. Motherhood is deeply personal and yet easily judged by Instagram followers and the state alike. Chan’s book asks: Can motherhood be measured by the performance of it?

“To write about Geppetto is to write about fatherhood, and at the same time he is a creator of a monster”: An Interview with Edward Carey

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Pinocchio is such a fixture of culture that most authors would be too nervous to interact with the classic story in any extended way. Edward Carey’s latest novel is audacious in this regard, giving us the untold tale of Geppetto in bold illustration and dynamic, resonant text.

Storytelling and Inherited Trauma in Of Women and Salt

As we read Gabriela Garcia’s debut novel, we come to understand that because of the trauma generations past experienced, stories get silenced, whether because the people involved die prematurely or because they are so traumatized that they hope that by silencing their stories they can stop their own pain—or

Shape and Space in the Revolutionary City, Personified

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In this historic moment of upheaval, Ahdaf Soueif’s memoir of Egypt’s 2011 revolution inspires and reminds us that cities will always belong to their people; as long as Cairo exists, its people will push forward.

“What is magic but a story with solid engineering?”

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Coming from a culture where audience participation was an integral part of communal life, the novel does not offer my parents, Lao refugees, an easy entry point. So I wrote in a way where nothing would be lost if they added their own spin to the story.

The Modern-Day Myth of The Good Life

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What makes these “Back to the Land” social media influencers so much like Helen and Scott Nearing is that both talk about the self-sufficient life as if it is something that is achievable to everyone. But what each of these people fail to say is that behind every “good

The Discomfort and Difficulty of Attention

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To pay attention has an actual cost. It requires us to trace the brittle edges of our connections to other people. To witness their pain and have them witness ours; to wait and gather ourselves together to hear what’s coming next.

“Paris, in its own way, is a character in the book”: An Interview with David Hoon Kim

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David Hoon Kim’s debut novel is as much about its protagonist and the characters around him as it is about the city itself, as much about the narrative momentum created through his wanderings as it is about the languages that carry and charge through him.

The Shape of Nations

One cannot simply outgrow or outlive a colonial, racist history. In order for the system to change, we need to stare at it and acknowledge it for what it is.

Translating Genderqueerness

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Genderqueerness is futuristic at its core, which is why you’ll come across many genderqueer characters in speculative fiction. But translation creates friction: gender identities meant to be ambiguous or kept secret until the reveal of an unexpected twist come up against other linguistic systems, as well as translators’ preconceptions.