Case History: Anna Agrees to an Autopsy
“After you die,” Sadiq says, “the doctors want to study your body. To see how you lived so long.”
Fiction
Fiction
The Paper Wasp
The sun was ruthless, impressing a sense of danger with each step I took away from the road. The heat was primordial, baking through my skin, drying my muscle and bones, desiccating everything but my darkest, wettest core.
Fiction
In the Grass
Those third and fourth nights, I cried and wailed. On the morning of the fifth day, my eyes were so swollen my father took one look at me and said, “Shiori, your face—it looks like the goldfish put a curse on you.”
Fiction
Doppelgängers
Later, when the rest of the girls said they were dipping out to another bar, Fiona stayed behind. “Use a condom!” Tish had whispered in her ear before giving her a slap on the butt, like a coach sending a player out on the field.
Essay
Bead, Bed, and Alley
On a trip to Berlin, the spin of the moon, and the generosity of the artist
Interview
Viet Thanh Nguyen: Writing to Re-member
The author discusses the refugee crisis, US foreign policy, and the problem of ‘narrative scarcity’ for marginalized and minority populations.
Essay
How I Wrote Certain of My (Fake) Poems
The author of Loudermilk reflects on “the weirdest form of history writing” she's ever done.
Review
Guadalupe Nettel and the Extraterritoriality of Latin America
In “After the Winter,” the novelist imagines a new relationship with ghosts, literary and otherwise.
Poetry
Dream Seminar
Every dream is crowded with faces and bodies— / there are more dreamed people than there are us.
Lives
Mr. Rain Jacket
Homeless, solitary, and schizophrenic, my brother had nothing to shield him from everybody else.
Commentary
Arundhati Roy: “Literature provides shelter”
In this year’s PEN America Arthur Miller Freedom to Write Lecture, Arundhati Roy spoke about the power of literature to challenge governments.
Commentary
Six Writers on the Power of Telling the Truth
At a panel at this year’s PEN America World Voices Festival, six writers discuss the empowering effects of sharing difficult experiences.
Commentary
Two “Artists of the Air” on the Limits of Time and Space
At a panel at this year’s PEN America World Voices Festival, high-wire walker Phillippe Petit and extreme-action pioneer Elizabeth Streb discuss their death-defying art.
Lives
Letters to Mothers: Crones, Hags, Witches, and Killjoys
Mother’s Day is a joke we are all in on, and yet it continues—straight-faced, deadly serious, and poisoned.