The Everyday and the Absurd
“Both Verkaaik and Ring look at ethnic violence from around the political lens, rather than directly through it.” Nabeeha Chaudhary looks at two academic texts on the subtleties of ethnic conflict in Pakistan.
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Vegetarian Meat
“Evidently, getting to like vegetarian meat is a matter of acquired taste and it’s a dish probably not for the faint-hearted.” Chitralekha Basu looks into the origins of an oxymoron in Calcutta.
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Kingship versus Kinship: Part II
“Nizam is just as homeless and out of place in the American’s valley as Antigone is in Thebes when it is reduced to Creon’s state of exception.” Part two of Peter Krause’s essay analysing Sophocles’ ‘Antigone’ and Joydeep Roy-Bhattachary’s ‘The Watch’.
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Caught Between Kentucky and Her Mind
““Who do you think took them?†I ask and lean in towards her. She assures me that theft played no role in it, because to say so would implicate Augustana, a Christian institution, in allowing sin to occur on its watch.” Inna Viktorovna makes a strange connection with a 98-year-old woman.
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Kingship versus Kinship: Part I
“It is wholly appropriate that a contemporary, post-9/11 retelling of Sophocles’ story be set in the context of a recent war…” Peter Krause talks about the relevance of the Antigone story in Roy-Bhattacharya’s ‘The Watch’.
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Brass Pounder
“He never smiles. This is true of all later photographs. With autobiographical writings, they suggest a serious, even brooding temperament.” Robert Boucheron’s short biography of his grandfather’s life as an early telegraph operator.
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The Mansion in Grapevine Canyon
“Walter was born in Cynthiana, Kentucky to George and Anna Scott. Pa George’s interests focused mainly on two enterprises: making moonshine and raising trotting horses. ” Wayne Sefton recounts the strange history of an abandoned mansion in the Mojave Desert.
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White Death Cocoon
“I couldn’t save him and I couldn’t care for him either. HIV took both options away from me.” Denzel Xavier Scott pieces together a memory that will stay with him forever.
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Read My Third World
“The immigrant keeps alive a period of history, with customs, memories and words that have become archaic and yet remain an existential necessity.” Arturo Desimone analyses his experience at the “Read My World” lit fest in Amsterdam.
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A Buddy Old and New
“Doorbells rouse excitement in the haves, while the have nots grumble at the disturbance.” Vincent J. Fitzgerald tells a simple story of a surprising friendship struck up during a routine social work visit.
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