Complicit with Everything
A metaphorical review of Tony Hoagland’s Unincorporated Persons in the Late Honda Dynasty, in which Johnny Rocket, Britney Spears, and the Saudi Monarchy play a crucial role in American poetry.**I was...
View ArticleEscaping Global Slavery, Almost
Njong Emmanuel Tohnain, imprisoned in a Chinese factory that produced shopping bags for Saks Fifth Avenue, wrote notes (some in English and others in French) inside five bags pleading for help from the...
View ArticleReading across Cultures: A Conversation with Ratika Kapur
No one ever said affairs weren’t messy. Ratika Kapur’s second novel, The Private Life of Mrs. Sharma, is the story of a missed connection at a train station in Delhi that actually connects. Renuka...
View ArticleHome Is Here
“I think Islam hates us.” –Donald J. Trump, March 2016 There is no singular Muslim story, no definitive identity for the entire religion. Instead, there are 3.3 million Muslim voices in the US—all as...
View ArticleTORCH: An Alien, Ineligible for Participation
ARN/2017 Everybody is arguing whether or not it is a BAN. Call it what you want, it is about keeping bad people (with bad intentions) out of country! (February 1, 2017) Stockholm’s Arlanda airport is...
View ArticleThis Week in Indie Bookstores
Eater asks the pressing questions in these trying times: “Can $26 Short Ribs Save Barnes & Noble?” The hot new wedding venue in China is the local bookstore. A look at why independent bookstores...
View ArticleRumpus Original Fiction: Of Birds Alit in Trees
The Dubai weather has finally settled, the heat in December no longer tyrannical but lulled into an almost docile warmth. The sun is gentle, streaking the house lightly as she sweeps beneath the...
View ArticleSophia Hanson Wants to Believe
Jimmy Fallon is tongue-tied. Face to face with Sophia Hanson, he can’t meet her eyes. His hands dangle fish-limp at his sides. He laughs and makes a joke of it: “You see how all my first dates go.” He...
View ArticleWhen the Healing Place Exploded
“I am good. Ana mnih. ANA MNIH. MAMA. ANA MNIH. KHALTOU. ANA MNIH.” These are the messages my brother-in-law, Rami, sent on the family Whatsapp group between 6:08 p.m. and 6:09 p.m. Beirut time, right...
View ArticleBefore
The future enters us, writes Rainer Maria Rilke, in order to be transformed in us, long before it happens. Consider, for instance, his infant sister’s christening gown packed in a storage trunk after...
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