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
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:
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
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
*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
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
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
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
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;
Communiqués by Maria Galina / Russian and English, bi-lingual edition Translated by Anna Halberstadt & Ainsley Morse.Cicada Press, New York. (2023-24) $22.00. Those Absences Now Closest by Dzvinia OrlowskyCarnegie Mellon Press, Pittsburgh. (2024) $20.00 Maria Galina (b.
Artistic Collaboration, Exile, and Brecht: A New Intellectual History, 1900-1950by Katherine Hollander (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2025) To say Bertolt Brecht had an eventful life would be an understatement. He fathered four children by three women; enjoyed a
