Beyond Trump’s Wall: Immigrant Literature in Washington, D.C.
Today, one in seven Washingtonians are immigrants, which has shaped literary trends and artistic output.
immigration
Stories Strangely Told: One Particular Stroller on the Road of Muslim Migration
It starts with a stroller: pink beams, brown fabric; the whole architecture collapsed into branches and leaf-rot and gritty snow. Five of the six wheels—two dual rears and a single front one—point up like the legs of a submissive dog. The sixth is snug in the dirt.
Review: TELL ME HOW IT ENDS: AN ESSAY IN 40 QUESTIONS by Valeria Luiselli
In her expanded essay Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions, Luiselli outlines the intake form for undocumented minors. The procedure, on paper, is simple: Luiselli presents the questions, the children speak, and Luiselli transcribes their answers in English for the lawyers who will fight to secure their legal status.
12 Books To Help You Survive 2017 And the Trump Era
Many of us will need to cope with, resist, or try to understand (or all of the above) Trump in 2017. So, below are 12 books—one per month—that can help with those unexpected projects.
David Lida’s ONE LIFE is the Injection of Humanity for Your Post-Election Blues
Post-election, escapism is the only salve when no one can seem to look each other in the eye. David Lida’s newest novel, ONE LIFE, is exactly the dark-humored piece of literature everyone should be indulging in right now.
Mirrored Crisis: Contemporary Immigration and Atticus Lish’s PREPARATION FOR THE NEXT LIFE
Most of us who now call ourselves Americans were at one point something else, or else we owe our citizenship to family members who immigrated. In the brouhaha of fear following the Paris attacks however, this has almost entirely been forgotten, adding more steps to an already long process for any refugee to enter the United States, not…
Becoming-Citizen: A Review of NATURALISM by Wendy Xu
NaturalismWendy XuBrooklyn Arts Press, Nov 15 201542 pp, $5 – $15 Buy: pdf | paperback | signed bundle Wendy Xu’s Naturalism opens with a dedication: “To immigrant parents.” That’s one of the most direct statements in the chapbook, and the eleven poems that follow create such a surreal mixture that it’s hard to tell if…
An Interview with Jennine Capo Crucet
I first met Jennine on the dance floor in a barn on a summer night at Breadloaf. Or at least I like to remember it that way. She’s an electric person, both in the flesh and on the page. She says the unexpected, and also the uncomfortable and necessary. She’s equal parts funny and fearless, irreverent…
Review: MR. AND MRS. DOCTOR by Julie Iromuanya
Mr. and Mrs. DoctorJulie IromuanyaCoffee House Press, 2015288 pages Buy: eBook Job Ogbonnaya is a liar—or, depending on your taste, a dreamer. After his brother Samuel dies in the Biafran war, Job becomes the hope of his family. They send him to school in America to become a doctor. Job flunks out but keeps planning to…