Reinventing the World: José Olivarez’s Citizen Illegal
If they come for one of us, they will come for us all.
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Posts Tagged: Mexico
How to Steal a Frozen Burrito
If you ask me why I did it, I can’t give you a proper answer. I was hungry and didn’t have much money, but it wasn’t like I was homeless or went to sleep starving.
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They Prefer People to Die: On Trump, Borders, and Racism
A good man doesn’t leave someone to die in the desert, and when he uses God’s name, he does it to bless, not to kill.
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The Torment of Queer Literature
Queer literature isn’t a box to unlock so that it can unlock me.
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Lessons from a Life: Alexander Chee’s How to Write an Autobiographical Novel
[T]he effect of reading Chee’s essays is to be reminded of why we write, but also, why we read, even in these times of never-ending distress.
...moreThis Week in Indie Bookstores
Indie bookstore news from across the country and around the world!
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The Tension of Identity: Hands That Break and Scar by Sarah A. Chavez
For Sarah A. Chavez, the body works as a site of difference and violence, but also magic and wisdom.
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The Journey toward Elsewhere: Natalia Sylvester’s Everyone Knows You Go Home
Despite its supernatural beginning, Everyone Knows You Go Home is grounded in the kind of gritty realism lived by every immigrant in this country.
...moreAlbum of the Week: Mint Field’s Pasar De Las Luces
“Amezcua’s synths and Sanchez’s vocals craft the perfect soundtrack to get lost in…”
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The Rumpus Poetry Book Club Chat with Eloisa Amezcua
Eloisa Amezcua discusses her collection From the Inside Quietly, bilingualism in poetry, and the connection between whiteness and yeast infections.
...moreThis Week in Indie Bookstores
Indie bookstore news from across the country and around the world!
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Thinking about the Story: A Conversation with Kareem Mortimer
Filmmaker Kareem Mortimer discusses his latest feature, Cargo, his writing process, and why the Bahamas can be “a microcosm for the world.”
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Playing God: A Conversation with Daniel Olivas
Daniel Olivas discusses his recent short story collection, The King of Lighting Fixtures, writing humor, and the role of religion in his work.
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A Need for a Home: Lucy Hughes-Hallett Discusses Peculiar Ground
Lucy Hughes-Hallett discusses her debut novel, Peculiar Ground, out today from HarperCollins.
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Sound & Vision: Celia C. Pérez
Allyson McCabe talks with Celia C. Pérez about her debut middle-grade novel, The First Rule of Punk, her inspirations for writing the book, and her own childhood.
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TORCH: Over the Borderline
I’m writing about the border through the eyes of children because the border is a problem of the imagination.
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Wisdom Is a Double-Edged Sword: Talking with Jay Baron Nicorvo
Jay Baron Nicorvo discusses his debut novel, The Standard Grand, how easy it is for civilians to forget about soldiers and veterans, and his longstanding love of animals.
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The Rumpus Poetry Book Club Chat with Erika L. Sánchez
Erika L. Sánchez discusses her new collection Lessons on Expulsion, pushing back against sexism and misogyny, being a troublemaker, and donkeys.
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Rumpus Original Fiction: Day of the Dead
Octavio is tired, tired of trying to separate what he remembers so vividly from the memories he can barely make out in the fog.
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A Language in Constant Rebellion: Talking with Aura Xilonen
Aura Xilonen discusses her novel, Gringo Champion, the realities of immigration, translating texts, and her love of cinema.
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Immigration and Infertility: Talking with Shanthi Sekaran
Shanthi Sekaran discusses her new novel, Lucky Boy, where fraught issues like immigration and infertility—and the lives they impact—intersect.
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We Brown Women
Our bodies will not be your banners. We are not yours to use and abuse, we are not yours to dupe. We see through your words, and we see your violence.
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: The Living Wound
Ancestors need a scratch, a stretch sometimes, too.
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The Sunday Rumpus Essay: Never Let Me Go
“You can’t hold on to the past,” Elif once told me. “You don’t know how. You don’t know what to keep, what to throw away. So you keep it all. And you can’t do that. No one can.”
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Kahlo vs. Kardashian: The Subversive Potential of the Female Self-Portrait
Where does the line between the self-portrait and the selfie fall?
...moreMexico City’s Budding Writing Scene
Writing in Mexico City is like holding a conversation when you’re under the takeoff and landing path of the city’s airplanes: you have to shut up sometimes, to let the noise take over everything, to let the sky split in two before picking up where you left off. As Americans, we tend to forget there […]
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Sound & Vision: Alice Bag
Allyson McCabe talks with Alice Bag, one of LA punk’s first frontwomen in the mid-70s as the lead singer and co-founder of the Bags, and who has just released her self-titled debut solo album.
...moreDrawing a Line
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 […]
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The Sunday Rumpus Essay: Motel Ecstasy
Alia Volz’s artist, expat mom needed to leave Mexico and go back to the United States for a heavy-duty chemo treatment, which meant it was time for a mother-daugther road trip.
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The Conversation: José Olivarez and Nate Marshall
There are so many spaces in this country where I feel unsafe particularly because of my body.
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