Ammoun, the top news website in Jordan, features The Common‘s collaboration with Hisham Bustani.
Ammoun (2013)
April 3, 2013
News and Events
All posts tagged: 2013
Fiona Maazel on Cults, Comedic Fiction, and Country Music
April 2, 2013
Interviews
S. TREMAINE NELSON interviews FIONA MAAZEL
Fiona Maazel is the author of the novels Last Last Chance and Woke Up Lonely, the latter of which was recently published by Graywolf Press. She is the winner of the Bard Prize for Fiction and a National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” Honoree. She teaches at Brooklyn College, Columbia University, New York University, Princeton University, and was the Picador Guest Professor at the University of Leipzig, Germany. Nelson first met Maazel, briefly, during a book launch party at Powerhouse Arena in Brooklyn, New York. They traded a few emails and agreed to conduct their interview online, over Gchat.
Changing Places: Mining Mongolia
I hadn’t come to Mongolia seeking an education in the politics of development, but the signs of rapid, double-edged growth were everywhere. In Bayan-Olgii, the westernmost city, a huge entourage of Western foreigners driving foreign vehicles tore into the yurt camp where I stayed one night. They shook the felt walls of the camp with their shouting and drinking and ramen noodle-making, and the next morning did burn outs in the gravel driveway and honked as they left, showering pebbles over the camp owners’ barelegged children.
Around the town of Bayan-Ollgi sat multitudes of great, hulking tourist vehicles, resting at roadsides like over-fed weight lifters. They were protected by new, fat tires, for the sand, and strapped to their roofs and sides were shiny water and petrol cans, spare tires, tool kits, maps and jacks – all the accouterments of a military reconnaissance mission. I had the strong impression of being in an invaded country, watching a civilian-clothed army loot stores for bread and toilet paper.
The Four Times of Day by William Hogarth
April 1, 2013
Issue 05, Issue 05 Art
William Hogarth (1697–1764), the eighteenth-century English artist known for his satirical views of contemporary life, first published The Four Times of Day engravings in 1738, based on paintings completed two years earlier. Although some of Hogarth’s other series profess a moral, the intent of these works was to portray humorous caricatures of contemporary figures. The images are rich in detail, providing a glimpse into the world of 1730s London.
Ammoun (2013)
March 31, 2013
News and Events
Ammoun, the top news website in Jordan, features The Common‘s collaboration with Hisham Bustani.
Tahawolat (2013)
March 31, 2013
News and Events
Tahawolat, a Lebanese culture and politics website, highlights Issue 06’s publication of stories from Hisham Bustani.
Riffle (2013)
March 31, 2013
News and Events
Riffle covers The Common’s second annual celebration of place in NYC on “Riffle World Literature”.
On the Near-Future Novelist: Odds Against Tomorrow by Nathaniel Rich
March 29, 2013
Essays
By SCOTT GEIGER
In two sequential hurricane seasons, the Earth has mounted two solid runs at (re)producing the plot of Nathaniel Rich’s Odds Against Tomorrow. It’s good Rich’s second novel found print this spring. After Irene and Sandy, there’s this spooky feeling that it’s only a matter of time before greater disaster strikes.
Before the Storm
March 27, 2013
Dispatches
The police commander of Quinindé showed up dead in the province of Manabí yesterday, pounds of cocaine and money littering his car. He died, slumped over the steering wheel, his body blistered with bullets. There is the menace of drugs, poverty, and gangs that looms over this city where the two rivers meet. Lately, anonymous flyers have appeared threatening vigilante justice—threatening to take back the town. “We know who you are thieves, murders, gang members,” it says. “And we will bring you a taste of your own poison.”
Collecting Time
March 26, 2013
Essays
Today, I am setting boots to snow. In my hands I hold a pair of shiny new binoculars. They’re my first new pair since the very first I bought, at age 12, with my $100 of babysitting money. For twenty years I carried those, and the trusty little things never failed me. These new ones cost a little more, yet even with their bright lenses, I’m thwarted by a golden-crowned kinglet. The tiny bird nips from one branch to the next, too quick to view for more than an instant as it seeks some minuscule source of nourishment among the needles.
