Identity and agency tangle in complicated ways when none of the languages you speak can precisely channel who you are.
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Posted inNonfiction
The Psychiatrist in My Writing Class and His ‘Gift’ of Hate
Rani Neutill recalls a literary workshop in which a white man critiqued her ability to write in “proper” English.
Posted inEditor's Pick
How Do You Reclaim a Massacre?
Greensboro didn’t have a “shootout” and Tulsa didn’t have a “race riot.” But it took decades of work for language to catch up to history.
Posted inArts & Culture, Essays & Criticism, Highlight, Quote Posts, Quotes
As Impossible and Imperfect as Translation
“But poetry…has helped me to find new meaning within and across linguistic boundaries.”
Posted inBooks
This Week in Books: Several Nihilistic Frenchmen
This week critics have looked to Huysmans, Camus and Jean-Philippe Toussaint for COVID-era inspiration.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Trial of Chuck Berry
At the peak of his fame, one of the architects of rock ‘n’ roll was arrested under the Mann Act for illegaly transporting a minor across state lines. But to the 14 year old girl named Janice Escalante who claimed Berry raped her 14 times, the law’s language around his behavior is tragically unjust, because it […]
Posted inNonfiction
‘Every Single Person Migrating Has a Story’: Caitlin Dwyer on the Emotional Underlayers of Family Separation
The writer describes her process of reporting and shaping her recent essay, “The State of Waiting,” which explores love in the shadow of war and immigration policy.
Posted inUncategorized
Final Girl, Terrible Place
I was expecting a handy theory. What I found was a way of seeing that would help me decode a script I’d been stuck in for much of my life.
Posted inEditor's Pick
A Comet Called Raji
“Fusion” had already become a dirty word by the time Raji Jallepalli made a name for herself. It connoted confused attempts to patch together different cooking languages under the patina of multiculturalism, as if two worlds jostled for dominance on a plate. Raji disentangled fusion from the gracelessness that the label implied.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Translation and the Family of Things
In this beautiful and poignant essay, the writer Crystal Hana Kim considers how translating her grandmother’s poems from Korean to English helped her appreciate the imprecision of language not as barrier to be transversed, but as an opportunity for new connection between herself, her mother, and her grandmother.
