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Self Timer
You can tell when a photograph was taken by a missing person. At once the room is draftier, an open warning. Since they’re not here, those in the photograph… More
At the Burning Abyss
No one who studies Trakl can fail to notice his penchant for colors, and some of his interpreters point out that Trakl’s colors express and evoke opposing sensations: White… More
On Translating Franz Fühmann
Fühmann had discovered Trakl’s apocalyptic poems as a soldier, and they shook his faith in Nazism. On furlough at the very end of the war, Fühmann learned that his… More
Seven Poems by Valerie Hsiung
(I am withholding something / frightening, holy, foolhardy, strange, / loving, excruciating, vital, unknown, / rejuvenating, transient, natural, old) // like a free will / like nowhere to go More
A Blacklisted Screenwriter on American Surveillance
Screenwriter and producer Walter Bernstein views new revelations of NSA spying through the lens of national and personal history More
PEN Urges Obama to Press Russia on Expression; Russian Writers Speak Out
New laws in Russia barring religious offense and 'homosexual propaganda' are troubling signs of an increasingly restrictive environment for freedom of expression. More
PEN Letter to President Obama in Advance of the G20 Summit in St. Petersburg
PEN sent the following letter to President Obama in advance of the G20 Summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, to urge him to use the opporutnity to express concern over… More
On the Frontiers of Plaster (A Few Notes on Sleep)
Take a man at noon. He stands erect. Overhead is the sun. I won’t say this man has no wish to maintain this position for all time, but it’s… More
On Translating Jean Ferry
"I thought: here is an author who unites disparate readerships, surely of use in our niche-fractured literary landscape, where readers divided by camp and interest can be reunited by… More
On Translating Vasily Kamensky
Approaching words as assemblages of letters, Kamensky employs the Futurist device of sdvig, or distortion, to inject modularity, pliability, and indeterminacy into the lexical field: by combining words, or… More
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