The chapters of The Gates of Gaza alternate between a harrowing hour-by-hour chronicle of that day—during which Tibon and his family took shelter in their safe room (which every house in Nahal Oz was required to have)—and a historical account of the role Gaza has played in the long struggle between Israelis and Palestinians.
Marina Blitshteyn’s poetry collection form a more perfect starts from an awkward fact: much of what we call the self has been decided before we have decided anything. A name, a language, a sex, a country, a class, a family history—these come first and speak through us.
Cry HavocBy Jack CarrSimon & Schuster, 2025. 560 pp. I am a pacifist, opposed to war across the board, and it is as a pacifist that I am reviewing Jack Carr’s Cry Havoc, a book that celebrates military skills and values and includes among its epigraphs the “unofficial Vietnam-era SEAL creed,”
The Venus of Odesa: New and Selected PoemsBy Askold MelnyczukMadHat Press, 2025. 139 pp. ~ On the cover of Askold Melnyczuk’s The Venus of Odesa: New and Selected Poems, a young blond woman looks at us reproachfully: wide-eyed, pale, thin, smoking a cigarette. She looks a little like Victoria Amelina, the Ukrainian
By Abby E. MurrayRecovery CommandsEx Ophidia Press (2025), 95 pp There is a familiar predicament that many of us can recognize at once: We’re in an environment, not of our making, with which we’re not in tune. This might be a short, endurable misery, like a bad party, but sometimes it’s
Peace is a Shy Thing: The Life and Art of Tim O’BrienBy Alex VernonSt. Martin’s Press, 2025 Tim O’Brien’s thirteen-month deployment to Vietnam produced The Things They Carried, his indelible literary response to the war. He was a college student from Worthington, Minnesota, who opposed the war when he was drafted in
Editor’s Note: This piece was translated into English by Peter Brown and Caroline Talpe. You can read Emmanuel’s original review in French here. ❊ Gaza, Is There Life Before Death?An anthology of poems, translated from Palestinian Arabic to French by Abdellatif Laâbi, collected by Yassin Adnan.Editions Points, (France), 2025. 208
GazaY a-t-il une vie avant la mort ?Anthologie poétiqueTextes traduits de l’arabe (Palestine) par Abdellatif LaâbiRéunis par Yassin AdnanÉditions Points – 2025 Il y a quelque chose d’obscène à commenter, à faire la critique (même et peut-être surtout si celle-ci est bienveillante) d’un poème écrit dans la nuit, dans les quelques
New York TrilogyBy Peter BalakianThe University of Chicago Press, 2025 Here’s a strange thing: as I read Peter Balakian’s New York Trilogy, I kept thinking of Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach.” Not because they resemble each other—although in both poems a pair of lovers hovers over the proceedings—but because Balakian’s set of
One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This By Omar El Akkad New York: Knopf, 2025. 187 pp. This, in the title of Omar El Akkad’s remarkable book, refers to the slaughter of tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza; a slaughter perpetrated by the state of Israel and unconditionally supported,
Director: Hyun kyung KimReleased: April 26, 2023 (Visions du Réel Film Festival, premiere)YouTube Trailer In the preamble to the documentary film, Defectors, directed by Hyun kyung Kim, a montage made with a map and scissors illustrates how the history of modern Korea is one of separations. The Japanese occupation in
Peter Beinart’s new book, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning (Knopf, January 28, 2025), constructs a specific narrative for Jews wrestling with Israel’s actions in Gaza and its dire consequences. The title is perhaps misleading; a more fitting title would include the words “Being Jewish-American After the Destruction of Gaza,”
