From the Archive: “To Silvestre Revueltas of Mexico, In His Death,” by Pablo...
When a man like Silvestre Revueltas goes back into the ground at last, there is a rumor, a wave's voice and a cry that makes ready and makes known his departure.
View ArticleFour Pheasants for Your Silence: A Review of Marcel Proust’s “Letters to His...
The portrait these letters paint of an artist trying to hone his craft at all costs transforms them from obscure Proustiana into a richer portrait of Proust the man, neighbor, and writer.
View ArticleAffable Beasts: An Interview with Michael Thomas Taren on Tomaž Šalamun
"This is to say that Tomaž's exuberance was always off the handle. He always thought his legacy would be found in America. America grafted onto his encyclopedia of references. He loved to write in...
View Article“January 1, 1924,” by Osip Mandelstam
Oh, life of clay! Oh, century’s death throes! I am afraid only he will understand you Who wears the helpless human smile of a man Who has exhausted himself.
View ArticleClimbing Lion Rock: An Interview with Wawa and Henry Wei Leung
"This intense, absurd tragedy, I realize now, is my invisible foundation. The myth of Pei Pei is born here—an image that picks up the devastation between Nietzsche and the world and between me and Hong...
View Article“We Are Always Us: The Boundaries of Elena Ferrante,” by Natalie Bakopoulos
The friendship is both tender and antagonistic, deeply intimate and full of spite, and Elena reflects on the difficulty of telling her own story without Lila in it. There is Lila’s story and there is...
View ArticleSVU with a Vengeance: The Horrors of “Ladivine”
There's an emphasis on character action in fiction that I've always found hilariously American. We don't read for historical perspective, for philosophy, for abstraction or allegory or poetic language...
View ArticleFrom the Archive: “Presence” by Czesław Miłosz
When I ran barefoot in our gardens by the river Nieviaza Something was there, that I didn’t then try to name: Everywhere, between the trunks of linden trees, on the sunny side of the lawn, on the path...
View ArticleLiterary Hate Mail, Sex with Shakespeare, and more
Excerpts and curios from around the web: The enduring art of literary hate mail, Shakespeare as a springboard for spanking, some thoughts on why giving up writing might not be wrong, and Lydia Davis on...
View ArticleGarbage People, Mr. Kafka, Hansel and Gretel Get Guns, and more
Excerpts and curios from around the web: Franz Kafka's workout regimen, the linguistic history of 'garbage person,' classic fairy tales re-imagined by the NRA, and a chance to rip open your shirt and...
View ArticleMeet Our Contributors, MQR 55:1
Meet the poets, essayists, fiction writers, and translators of MQR 55:1.
View ArticleMeet Our Contributors, MQR 54:4
Meet the poets, essayists, fiction writers, and translators of MQR 54:4.
View ArticleAffable Beasts: An Interview with Michael Thomas Taren on Tomaž Šalamun
"This is to say that Tomaž's exuberance was always off the handle. He always thought his legacy would be found in America. America grafted onto his encyclopedia of references. He loved to write in...
View ArticleOn (a lack of) Diversity
Susan Bernofsky described recently the “disheartening” numbers, when it comes to the percentage of female authors in translation. Across twenty-five presses evaluated by Women in Translation, only...
View ArticleMeet Our Contributors, MQR 54:3
Meet the poets, essayists, fiction writers, and translators of MQR 54:3.
View ArticleTomaž Šalamun: A Love List of Lines
Since Tomaž Šalamun’s death at the end of last year, I have been living with his poetry, walking around with it, running my hands back and forth across its lines, coming to find in its voice a friend,...
View ArticleThe Tel Aviv-Berlin Road
The year 2015 marks a half-century of diplomatic relations between Israel and Germany. It is a complicated relationship, to say the least. On the one hand, ties between these two countries are...
View ArticleModern Iranian Poetry in Translation
Classical Persian poetry has held an important place in English-language literature: Khayyam is a central figure of the Victorian era; Rumi remains a best-selling poet in America; and Hafez has been...
View ArticleBrute Matter: Max Blecher’s “Adventures in Immediate Reality”
Adventures in Immediate Irreality: No, not a shorthand for my recent trip to Las Vegas—though that is where I read Romanian writer Max Blecher’s 1936 novel, recently reissued by New Directions.
View ArticleThe Mysterious Hebrew Whale
In January, I shared with regular readers of this blog my experience reading as many editions of Moby-Dick as I could get my hands on in a university small town. I found fancy illustrated versions, and...
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