Or ‘Autumn’, for those of us who are still resisting the encroachment of Americanisms into our daily speech. With photography by Olaya Barr, visual arts, drama, non-fiction, poetry, fiction and reviews, there is something for everyone here.
So many goodies to explore! As usual, the sheer ambition and mix of languages is dazzling. 31 countries featured in this issue alone. Togo is represented here for the first time, bringing the total of countries in the archives up to 122. The number of languages featured is now at 102, with the inclusion of Q’anjob’al from Guatemala.
Just a few of the things I want to read at leisure during my holidays, if I have internet connection:
- the special feature on Catalan fiction, about which I still know far too little beyond Mercè Rodoreda and Jaume Cabré
- Phillip Lopate talking about the personal essay as ‘a mode of being’
- Abdellah Taïa about why he chooses to write in French – asking himself if he even likes this language anymore, this has real emotional resonance with me, since I too write in my ‘non-native’ language
- An intriguing review about the unfinished novel of one of the great losses to Chinese literature Xiao Hong.
The contrast between intriguing possibility and depressing probability is perhaps widest of all with Xiao Hong, who, in her brief thirty-one years on this planet, managed to write some of the finest Chinese fiction of the twentieth century. I wonder what would have happened to her had she lived another few decades, but I doubt it would have been anything good.
Dylan Suher
It sounds like a terrific issue, Marina Sofia. I’m especially interested in that question of writing in one’s own language or another. Fascinating! Language is part of the soul, I think, and it’s such a wrenching feeling when you ask yourself if it’s even your language – or at least, the language you want to use for expression.