Because borders are so weird, words proliferate. Along with arbitrary, nonsensical violence—and strange, unpredictable exceptions—people talk a lot and lots of papers get filed, even as all of it is, in practice, evacuated of meaning.

For The New Inquiry, Aaron Bady thinks through the poetics and the “Kafka-esque” violence of borders. His thoughts culminate in a review of Yuri Herrera’s Signs Preceding The End of The World, one of the winners of the 2016 Best Translated Book Award.