All cities, it seems safe to say, have their history written on—and by—their walls. In some places, though, the past is more present than elsewhere. Paris, for instance. Earlier this week, I spent a night in the 12th arrondissement, near Porte Dorée, an area of the city I don’t know well. It’s not . . .
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Because my father was a career Marine, I lived on military bases in Southern California, where during the war years between 1967 until sometime in 1970, I watched troops of new recruits assemble for embarkation to Vietnam. They were mustered at the LTA (‘Lighter-Than-Air’) Station in Tustin, CA, on which were two . . .
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Editor’s Note. On May 20, 2015, Erri De Luca appeared in a courtroom in Turin, as a witness in his own defense, to counter the charges brought against him by the Italian state for “instigating violence.” De Luca’s alleged offense was simply expressing his opinion during a 2013 phone interview with the . . .
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Editor’s note: Recently in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Točak—a weekly arts program on the Bosnian national television channel BHTV—dedicated an entire program to the work of Karim Zaimović, a young artist and writer killed during the siege of Sarajevo. One of Zaimović’s stories was the inspiration for a comic published in Massachusetts Review 55.3. What follows below . . .
Read MoreMassachusetts Review: First of all, congratulations on winning the 2013 Jules Chametzky Translation Prize for your work on Anna Piwkowska’s poem, “A letter from Paul Éluard to his wife who is in Cadaqués with Salvador Dali”! Iza Wojciechowska: Thank you! I was delighted when I found out. MR: You certainly deserve it. . . .
Read MoreMy father and mother came by plane to Italy. No run-down boat for them, they had the luxury of a regularly scheduled flight. Last century, back in the seventies, people like my parents who came from the global South still had the possibility of traveling like any other human beings. No rickety . . .
Read MoreThat picture of the Garissa University massacre which left 148 students strewn across the floor—I did everything in my power not to come across it on Twitter. But that picture, heavy with death and desperation, forced itself on me. Young bodies, partially clothed, now robbed of a future, killed off like rats. . . .
Read MoreJust back from the AWP in Minneapolis, I’d love to be writing this morning about the fun of chatting with writers—some we have published, some we would love to publish, some we look forward to getting to know—or about the splendid haul of books and magazines that pushed my carry-on to the . . .
Read MoreAn Interview with Ju-Chan and Bruce Fulton Congratulations for having your translation of Kim Tae-yong’s “Pig on Grass” selected for publication in the Massachusetts Review and then for winning the 4th Annual Chametzky Prize for Translation! How did you celebrate?We were beside ourselves with joy and had a glass or two of wine, then forwarded the . . .
Read More“Would you like to meet one of my poets? I have one for every taste—romantic, tragic, surreal… all very reasonably priced,” I was asked by an elegant, grey-haired lady in a bar on Balmes who was waving a small book under my nose of what appeared to be poems written by different . . .
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