For the Guardian, Dina Nayeri explores the troubling expectation that immigrants should replace their identity with gratitude. At New York magazine, Bahar Gholipour covers the fine points of dredging up personal history when writing memoir.
It paralyzes me to think about the sacrifices my family made before I was in my mother’s womb. When they came here they knew they would lose a part of their language, their memories, their sanctity of self.
There isn’t even a discussion. There aren’t any words. You just start swinging—the building is a fence, your cousins are a fence. The two of you are surrounded. There’s no escape for either of you.
When I attended professional acting school back in 1986 (the MFA program at UC Irvine, I proudly remark), I had a teacher ask me once, “Charles, are you able to…
Susan Briante discusses The Market Wonders, her newest collection of poetry in which she draws on market indicators like the Dow Jones Industrial Average to construct a criticism of contemporary culture.
The sounds I made were pleasant to my ears, but that’s all they were to me. I was too young to understand what culture and heritage meant, too young to understand the reasons behind memorizing ancient poems.
Set in post-Katrina New Orleans, Chris Tusa’s second novel, In the City of Falling Stars (Livingston Press, September 2016), tells a tale of paranoia and intrigue. Maurice Delahoussaye witnesses dead birds…
I knew that just as the country was reverting, so was I. Every face now seemed a potential enemy and these were feelings I had not felt in almost twenty years.
Joe Okonkwo discusses his debut novel Jazz Moon, the quest for self-discovery, creative inspiration, and what it means to build a family when home is so very far away.