The incongruity is the fascination of it all. In New York, the most modern of all large cities, the very embodiment of twentieth-century youth, thrives superstition, gray with countless centuries…
The optimists went to the gas chambers (or so it’s been said). The pessimists went to America. The collabos went to Maxim’s (for steak). The orphans went to the country…
From “In Moscow, Russians Face the Vertigo of War,” which was reported from Moscow and published in March by L’Obs. The names of some subjects have been changed by the…
From descriptions of trips hosted by Young Pioneer Tours, which offers vacations to “destinations your mother would rather you stay away from.” south sudan budget tour The most affordable tour…
From Chronicle of a Hunger Striker, which is forthcoming from Deep Vellum. Sentsov was arrested in 2014 for protesting the Russian annexation of his native Crimea, and spent five years…
From A Divine Language, which will be published next month by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 1. Prime numbers are those that can be divided cleanly only by themselves and by…
From Companion Piece, a novel, which was published last month by Pantheon. Surface v depth: and if you said someone was light-timbered it meant they were a weakling, I told…
From “Unspeakable Pain,” which was published in the Spring 2022 issue of The Yale Review. “I am Dr. Smith,” I say. “I am Dr. Jones.” For five hours a day,…
From “Corporate Insecthood,” a study conducted by Nina Strohminger and Matthew Jordan, which will be published next month in Cognition. Participants were asked to rank various corporations and organizations on…
In memory of Marisela Escobedo, a Mexican activist who was assassinated in 2010 while protesting the acquittal of Sergio Rafael Barraza Bocanegra, who had confessed to murdering Escobedo’s teenage daughter.…
From Letter to the Americans, which was written in 1949 after a visit to New York City. It will be published for the first time in English this month by…
From a list of names that are banned around the world, collected by USBirthCertificates.com. Linda (Saudi Arabia) Sarah (Morocco) Judas (Switzerland) Osama bin Laden (Germany) Devil (Japan) Monkey (Denmark) Thor…
Only Greg ever noticed the notch in my tooth, and only in outline did I tell him about how I got it—how Guin and I stole that couple’s developed film…
This is the new world that I read about at breakfast. This is the great age, make no mistake about it; the robot has been born somewhat appropriately along with…
A young woman is waiting in her New York apartment for her fiancé to arrive and take her to city hall to get married. When he doesn’t turn up, she…