Posts by author
Bryan Washington
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Another Order
In an essay reprinted over at Longreads, Alexander Chee looks back on finishing his MFA, moving back to New York, and the interiority of class that cater-waitering allowed him to peek into: In 1997, I began working as a waiter…
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Mis Documentos
Over at the New Yorker, James Wood chronicles Alejandro Zambra’s ascent in Latin American letters.
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Motion Picture Soundtrack
As it turns out, Aleksandar Hemon jams out to D’angelo, Grimes, and Fela Kuti; for the rest of the tunes the writer put on his playlist for The Making of Zombie Wars, head over to Largehearted Boy.
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Unbearable Whiteness
Elisa Gabbert asks the hard questions for Electric Literature: When the VIDA counts come out and multiple publications are shown to publish far more men than women (with the numbers for POC writers looking even worse), editors make excuses about their submission…
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Urban Escape
Of course Zadie Smith’s written a science fiction epic, set on September 11, 2001, chronicling the haphazard relationship between Marlon Brando, Michael Jackson, and Elizabeth Taylor. And of course it’s based on a true story, or at least an urban…
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Here and Afar
Over at WBUR, Radio Open Source calls their program “an American conversation with a global attitude.” The podcast touches on everything from first-reads with James Wood, to Knausgaard on literary mechanics, to Pakistan’s regrettable American marriage in wake of Osama…
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Nollywood in Vogue
Nearly a decade ago, Binvayanga Wainaina wrote an essay for Granta that changed his whole life. Now, he looks at the interior of African publishing, the landscape of literature on the continent, and the “Nollywoodification of the book market”: “I am least…
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Mulatto, Mulatto, Mulatto
At BuzzFeed, Mat Johnson breaks down the logistics of an oft-ignored, always tumultuous descriptor for multiethnic folks everywhere: I know that many people, they hear mulatto, and they think of the word mule. This is often the first complaint I hear…
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All-American Girl
Over at the Paris Review, Brit Bennett profiles the role, or lack thereof, of black dolls among Americans today: Of course, you can still buy racist dolls. Golliwogs—blackfaced rag dolls—are still sold in the United Kingdom; only in 2009 were…
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Baby Horror
Over at Vice, Julian Morgans gets a hold of Tim Jacobus, the guy behind R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps series’ book covers. Their conversation touches on prog rock, horror’s allure, and the literary merit of the little horror novels: Well, they’re not Thoreau,…
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Infierno Completo
Sergio Pitol gets the profile treatment over at Lit Hub: Sergio Pitol (1933) is all of the above; he is, I believe, a total writer. And by writer I do not mean one of those intellectuals who flirt with power (“The…