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A Week with Zhadan (3)

March 26, 2022 - By Serhiy Zhadan

Editor's note: There are many ways to show solidarity with the people of Ukraine, and to stand for civilization, against barbarism. For the next seven days, we've decided to offer you a poem from Serhiy Zhadan, so that you will think of his words, and of his struggle today in Kharkiv, and of all the other heroic souls whose voices we have not heard, or heard sufficiently, as well as those we will never hear again: "incanting over every single / lost soul."

(To get together and talk...)

(Sun, terrace, lots of green...)

(Here’s another weird...

A Week with Zhadan (2)

March 25, 2022 - By Serhiy Zhadan

Editor's note: There are many ways to show solidarity with the people of Ukraine, and to stand for civilization, against barbarism. For the next seven days, we've decided to offer you a poem from Serhiy Zhadan, so that you will think of his words, and of his struggle today in Kharkiv, and of all the other heroic souls whose voices we have not heard, or heard sufficiently, as well as those we will never hear again: "incanting over every single / lost soul."

(To get together and talk ... )

(A woman walks down the street ...)

(Here’s another...

A Week with Zhadan (1)

March 24, 2022 - By Serhiy Zhadan

Editor's note: There are many ways to show solidarity with the people of Ukraine, and to stand for civilization, against barbarism. For the next seven days, we've decided to offer you a poem from Serhiy Zhadan, so that you will think of his words, and of his struggle today in Kharkiv, and of all the other heroic souls whose voices we have not heard, or heard sufficiently, as well as those we will never hear again: "incanting over every single / lost soul."

(Sun, terrace, lots of green...)

(A woman walks down the street...)

(Here’s another...

War Childhood

March 19, 2022 - By Erri De Luca

(Logo of the War Childhood Museum, Sarajevo. Design: Anur Hadžiomerspahić. Used by permission)
 

You hear that girls pretend to be mothers and boys soldiers. What I see are children playing intensely and seriously at life; like puppies they exercise and train with every move they make.

Wars drag them from one place to the next with no toys in their refugee baggage. Whereas adults collapse, weeping, they look around, keeping their eyes close to the ground—watching to see if other children are coming, or a dog, or maybe a bird. Suddenly they fall asleep, in slumber shaped like a fortress.

Of course, in the moment, children do cry out in fear—from the explosions and from the infectious fear of...

10 Questions for Sarah E. Vaughn

March 18, 2022 - By Edward Clifford

Some people speak of living through a climate crisis. Others simply go about their business as if nothing is happening. Both groups of people have more in common than they would let on, and the climate crisis might well inspire either to tell stories about events they would prefer to never experience again.
—from "On Watermarks and Fakes," Volume 62, Issue 4 (Winter 2021)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
In elementary school every year we were assigned to write short fiction accompanied with illustrations. It was a tall order then, and would still be for me now. I remember two of the stories I wrote. One was about a girl losing her pet parrot and the other was about a girl with stage freight. While it was very...