ANDERS CARLSON-WEE in conversation with JOY BAGLIO
I live the way I live in order to have time to create art. The culture doesn’t want me to do that; it wants me convinced that I need things, and in order to have these things I need to trade away my time. A long time ago I said no to all that.
Results for: inside passage
Read Excerpts by the Finalists for the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing 2023
NEWS AND EVENTS
Migration is an increasingly common feature of modern life. Whether for personal or for political or environmental reasons, when people cross the many thresholds of our world—traversing landscapes, languages, traditions, and border lines—they do so often at great personal risk.
Translation: Excerpt from A SPACE BOUNDED BY SHADOWS
EMINE SEVGI ÖZDAMAR
The man started talking in Turkish, ‘Mari doesn’t live in Paris anymore.’ ‘Oh, oh!’ ‘She met someone two months ago and left for Canada with him. I live here now.’ ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘she was my best friend in Istanbul. Oh, dear, have I come too late, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh?’ Then I went silent.
Memory’s Underworld
LOUIS-PHILIPPE DALEMBERT
Every time I visit Cayenne, as soon as night falls, my feet always take me, almost against my will, back to la Crique. This notorious neighborhood of the Guianese capital was once known as the “Chinese Quarter,” but there’s nothing Asian about it anymore, or very little.
The Story of a Box
JEFFREY HARRISON
I often thought of Teeny and Aggie during this project. Though I never attended a séance to make contact with them, I did have a dream in which I found a letter Teeny had written to Marcel after his death, but I couldn’t remember what it said when I woke up.
Body
SULAIMAN AL-SHATTI
Whenever she spoke, my mother habitually turned down her upper lip and clenched her teeth as if to control the flow of her words—filtering them, if you will. Her teeth were white and strong; they were free of blemishes, except for the three that had been chipped.
Coconut and Bananas
ROMANA CAPEK-HABEKOVIC
A couple of days ago my husband returned from the grocery store with a pound of bananas and a small coconut. The bananas were perfectly ripe for consumption, and I put them in a fruit basket.
The Desire Tree
MEERA NAIR
I imagine the tree’s hanging roots and its giant trunk as conduits, which, along with its rising sap and the susurration of its leaves, convey the deepest longings and the secret stories of its devotees, all that clamorous human need, up to the silent gods hoping they are out there.
Iceberg, Mine
GERARDO SÁMANO CÓRDOVA
We called him Ísjaki. Few knew his real name. I certainly didn’t when I was charged with being his caretaker during his first visit to New York. Ísjaki meant “iceberg” in Iceland, where this man came from. I wrote Ísjaki on a blank sheet of paper—careful to include the accent.
Unwarranted Reticence: A Review of Eleanor Wilner’s GONE TO EARTH
TERESE SVOBODA
Eleanor Wilner, a recipient of the 2019 Frost Medal for distinguished lifetime achievement in poetry and MacArthur-winner, had to be coaxed to publish her first collection at age 42.