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Interviews

10 Questions for Johanna Bishop

- By Franchesca Viaud

Profile of a solitary man, in shirt sleeves, whose pose of
sharpening a blade suggests he is a knife grinder. Often
called The Spy, since he seems to be listening to some-
thing attentively, it is thought to depict the man who
discovered the Catiline conspiracy; at other times of day
he appears to be Cincinnatus, at still others Manlius Capi-
tolinus.
—from Andrea Inglese's "Five Visions From The Big Duck," Volume 65, Issue 2 (Summer 2024)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you translated.
I suppose I translated a few poems and songs from French and Italian as a teenager—recently, an old friend even dug up a Natalia Ginzburg essay that we had the youthful hubris to tackle over a...


Interviews

From Below the Earth and Across the Sea:

The Chthonic Choreography of Emma Cianchi

- By Anna Botta and Jim Hicks, with Emma Cianchi and Caterina Giangrasso Angrisani

Editor’s note: As will be clear, the following conversation with the Massachusetts Review’s Executive Editor, Jim Hicks, and the co-editor of our “Mediterraneans” issue, Anna Botta, was conducted just hours before the première of the choreographer Emma Cianchi and ArtGarageDanceCompany’s new performance, The Sea that Unites Us. After the dance that evening, the choreographer told the audience more about her inspiration. She commented, “When I came here, I had the idea of working on the theme of the journey. When I got to Jacob’s Pillow, however, I immediately felt that I also needed to bring something here from my land, which is rich in mythology. And I thought of the legends of female figures present in the story of...


Interviews

10 Questions for Ryan Choi

- By Franchesca Viaud

As the sharpened sword beheads the two-headed
               serpent,
I shun the crude laughter and gossip of the mortal
               world.
Thousands of autumns of virtue and vice are buried
               in the yellow of the earth,
Under the sunny skies that forever shine on good
               and evil the same.
The slightest breeze rumples the moon’s portrait on
               the lake,
The faintest drizzle snatches the blooming flowers
               from their branches.
...


Interviews

10 Questions for Will Howard

- By Franchesca Viaud

We always wanted to have a bar.
We always wanted to have a music bar.
We always wanted to have a music bar and call it “The 67”
and fill it with album covers
from that oh-so-glorious year
for western pop music,
call it “The 67” and put it on an enormous sign
next to Warhol’s banana.
—from Pablo Texón's "The 67," Volume 65, Issue 1 (Spring 2024)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you translated.
When I was in high school, I translated an excerpt of Isabel Allende’s La casa de los espíritus in an English class. I’m sure my translation was awful, but I enjoyed the part of the assignment where we had to write a one-page reflection on the...


Interviews

10 Questions for Lisa Schantl

- By Franchesca Viaud

“hello”

i say to my reflection.
at the level of spittelau i see it. my reflection.
recognize it, but not myself in it.

these are days on which i believe i’ve forgotten how to walk.

on the way back from heiligenstadt i put one foot in front of the
other, but it feels so ridiculous that i stop every few meters to watch
other people taking their steps.
translated from Maë Schwinghammer's "Hello," Volume 65, Issue 1 (Spring 2024)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you translated.
I remember that it was a gray and heavy winter day, packed with dust and gloom and the occasional flickering streetlamp, and I had the shared student apartment to myself. A few...


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