Get Access to Print and Digital for $23.99 per year.
Subscribe for Full Access

Articles

Five Stories

how high? that high He had his stick that was used mostly to point at your head if your head wasn’t held up proudly. I still like that man—Holger! He…

Read more

New Books

On the morning of my friend’s funeral, my period arrived two weeks early and with a sudden force that ruined the black clothing I’d brought and the rickety chair I…

Read more

How to Read the Bible

The gospel according to John (and Karen)

Read more

Where We Live Now

America’s new poetry of place

Read more

Findings

Rising temperatures will make Muslims’ pilgrimages to Mecca increasingly dangerous, will cause Appalachian salamanders to use their regenerating ability as a heat buffer, will hurt New Hampshire salamanders by decreasing…

Read more

Friend: Jana

Friend: Jana, a mixed-media artwork by Ann Toebbe, whose work was on view in July at Tibor de Nagy Gallery, in New York City. Courtesy the artist and Tibor De…

Read more

Letters

In Memoriam We at Harper’s Magazine are deeply saddened by the untimely death of our former contributing editor Edwin Dobb. He wrote many essays for the magazine, including “Pennies from…

Read more

Patrios

“Nationalism” is rapidly overtaking even “populism” as a foremost political bogeyman. Yet progressives will often still embrace “pa­tri­ot­ism.” The elevation of the last term is meant to deflect Trump-­style accusations…

Read more

Left of Europe

From an interview with Neil Davidson published in the Summer 2019 issue of New Politics. Davidson teaches at the University of Glasgow. His most recent book, We Cannot Escape History,…

Read more

Senior Portrait

From The Collector of Leftover Souls, a collection of non-fiction published this month by Graywolf Press. This story, first published in the Brazilian magazine Época, is based on a week the…

Read more

Rumors

From Fear of Description, a book of narrative poetry published this month by Penguin.

Read more

In the Cards

From “The Fool,” which appears in The Fool and Other Moral Tales, a collection of stories published last month by New Directions. Translated from the French by Mark Hutchinson. I…

Read more

Face Lift

From modifications made to photographs of suspects by N.Y.P.D. officers before entering them into facial-­recognition software, as referenced in “Garbage In, Garbage Out: Face Recognition on Flawed Data,” a report…

Read more

[Untitled]

A photograph by Demetris Koilalous from Caesura: The Duration of a Sigh, a monograph about the experience of migrants who cross the Aegean Sea to Greece, which was published last…

Read more

Hamlet

Hamlet, a hand-embroidered found photograph by Julie Cockburn, from her monograph Stickybeak, which was published by Chose Commune in September. Cockburn’s work is on view this month at Flowers Gallery,…

Read more

Meow Mixer

From user reviews on Amazon of Pinot Meow, a non-alcoholic beet-based drink for cats that is marketed as “cat wine.” My cat loved itMy cats didn’t seem to like itMy…

Read more

American Sonnet for the Magic Apples

From a manuscript in progress. Or the one drunken half-quarter grand uncle recallingThe sound speckled apples on his fabled real daddy’sCoastal orchard made falling multidimensionallyTo the vaguely salty combination of…

Read more

“Fent’s Prairie, near Salina, Kansas, Late May, 2018”

“Fent’s Prairie, near Salina, Kansas, Late May, 2018,” a photograph by Terry Evans, whose work was on view in March at Catherine Edelman Gallery, in Chicago. © The artist. Courtesy…

Read more

Three Trick Pony

Three Trick Pony, a painting by David Hytone, whose work was on view in July at Gallery 16, in San Francisco. Courtesy the artist and Gallery 16, San Francisco

Read more

Constitution in Crisis

Has America’s founding document become the nation’s undoing?

Read more

The Precipice of Disunion

Upon the election of Andrew Jackson, the conflict over the rights of the states had reached a perilous height. The Constitution was on a lee shore; neither the sun nor…

Read more

Power of Attorney

Can progressive prosecutors achieve meaningful criminal-justice reform?

Read more

Good Bad Bad Good

What was the Golden Age of TV?

Read more

Secrets and Lies

Sexual abuse in the world of Orthodox Judaism

Read more

Life after Life

Why parole in America is just another prison

Read more

Carlitos in Charge

I was in Midtown, sitting by a dry fountain, making a list of all the men I’d slept with since my last checkup—doctor’s orders. Afterward, I would head downtown and…

Read more

New Books

There are no men in the densely civilized galaxy of Samuel R. Delany’s 1984 novel Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand. Everybody—whether human or extraterrestrial, and on all but…

Read more

Novel, Essay, Poem

Ben Lerner changes perspective

Read more

| View All Issues |

November 2019

Close
“An unexpectedly excellent magazine that stands out amid a homogenized media landscape.” —the New York Times
Subscribe now

Debug