January O’Neil (left) and Joseph O. Legaspi (right)
In the mid-90s, JOSEPH O. LEGASPI and JANUARY O’NEIL met hovering over a cheese plate at the graduate school orientation of NYU’s creative writing program. They have been friends and champions for each other ever since. On the recent release of Joseph’s third full-length collection, Amphibian, the two formally met on Zoom to discuss the book, persistence, survival, legacy, and the long arc of their friendship.
Review by ASHLEY HONEYSETT
The Voice of Blood cover
The short story collection The Voice of Blood is the first book by Mexican writer Gabriela Rábago Palafox to be translated into English, 35 years after its original publication. Rábago Palafox achieved some recognition in Mexico, winning a number of awards including the prestigious Puebla prize, but was not widely recognized in her lifetime. Interviews and biographical information are limited. The blurbs on the book refer to her as “the secret ‘cool aunt’ of a few Mexican writers,” and say that her work was almost impossible to find. She wanted an international readership, which her translators say was an unorthodox ambition in Mexico, which had insular, nationalistic literary and publication traditions. They speculate that, had she lived, her star would have continued to rise. But Rábago Palafox died in 1995, at age 47.
Excerpted from the essay collection FREEDOM.
I arrive in Johannesburg, South Africa, on December 2, 2013. My father will join me in two weeks, with my brother to follow a week later. In one month, we will unveil my mother’s headstone in the township where she grew up, one year after her death. Weeks before my arrival, a report detailing unlawful expenditure of taxpayer money in the form of $20 million of “security improvements” to President Jacob Zuma’s lavish compound, is leaked to the press. Nine years ago, the country’s first all-race elections were held and South Africa finally regained freedom from apartheid rule.
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