Best of Essays

Take another look at James Salter on France and A Sport and a Pastime, introduced by Paul Yoon; revisit Damascus with Tricia Khleif as she recalls music lessons in “Abu Musa.”

 

Photo from Flickr Creative Commons

 

From the beginning, The Common has brought you transportive writing and exciting new voices. We are committed to supporting writers and maintaining free, unrestricted access to our website, but we can’t do it without you. Become an integral part of our global community of readers and writers by donating today. No amount is too small. Thank you!

Best of Essays

Related Posts

Headshot of Natalie Linh Bolderston

A Story is an Offering: Notes on Storytelling and Inherited Memory

NATALIE LINH BOLDERSTON
Whenever my mother gives me one of her stories, I watch her cut into it, lay it out for me in a way I can consume, in a way she can bear. Her stories simmer in her muscles, ready to emerge at a flick of her wrist, a familiar flare of joy or pain. 

Man standing behind a large plant.

Naow’s Boutique

RO SKELTON
Naow created a place for himself and for me, a place where we always had company, as well as for the lost and lonely people of this neighborhood who had failed to find jobs in the city, who were homeless, hungry, or hadn’t seen their children for months or even years.

Headshot of Aimee Liu

The Lost Box

AIMEE LIU
For years when I was growing up, my mother created annual family albums at Christmastime, and she often had to resort to shots of her garden or floral arrangements for lack of human portraits. The pictures she took of people were usually out of focus. And my cameraman father was notorious for standing so far