FICTION

Antonya Nelson NOTHING RIGHT
Where had Leo learned what to do? How did he know to grip Niffer’s buttocks while chewing hungrily at her mouth?

Rick Bass THE ELEPHANT
An enormous hump-shaped animal writhed and lunged out in the lake, powering its way through the moon-bright floating bog of salt.

Elizabeth Strout A DIFFERENT ROAD
There was a quick, rushing sound—the curtain flung back with the tinny whoosh of its rings against the rod. There was a person in a blue ski mask waving an arm at Olive, shouting, “Get down.”

Ann Beattie MONI WAYSIDE BLUE
I came to believe her when she said that once people knew the facts, they’d realize the children’s cuts and bruises had not been inflicted by her.

NEW VOICE—FICTION

Daniel Menasche WE JUST CAME UP FROM SAN FRANCISCO
They say Aaron must have known—why else would he have been wearing a gas mask? But I think there are plenty of reasons to wear a gas mask.

POETRY

Bruce Smith
DEVOTION: X
DEVOTION: MEDEA
DEVOTION: RED SHIFT

Cynthia Lowen
OPPENHEIMER ON THE COUCH
OPPENHEIMER FINDS A LOVER, OR, AFTERNOON AT THE SHORE

Brett Fletcher Lauer
A TENDENCY TOWARD MYSTICISM
AFTER READING THIS POEM

Noelle Kocot
TWELFTH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY
ONE POEM FOR MATTHEW Z.

NEW VOICE—POETRY

Anthony Alessandrini
FOUR WAYS OF REMOVING A WALL (A FIELD MANUAL)

INTERVIEWS

AN INTERVIEW WITH JOHN BANVILLE
Jennifer Levasseur and Kevin Rabalais
The Booker Prize–winning writer chats about Dostoyevsky’s failures, the inability to read his own work, and the reason his book reviews make him seem like a much nicer person than he is—though Ian McEwan might disagree.

AN INTERVIEW WITH CLARIBEL ALEGRÍA
Abbie Fields
After over forty books and more than one revolution, the Nicaraguan-born Salvadoran writer considers exile, revolution’s effects on literature, Julio Cortázar’s Hopscotch, the political uses of poetry, and the ways to preserve a poem’s aroma in translation.

AN INTERVIEW WITH NURUDDIN FARAH
Anderson Tepper
Exiled for his satirical book A Naked Needle, the prolific Somalian novelist and winner of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature and other honors decided to write a work worthy of his own fate.

ESSAYS & FEATURES

Steve Almond and Binyavanga Wainaina TWO VIEWS OF RYSZARD KAPUŚCIŃSKI
A few months after the death of the legendary Polish war correspondent, two writers question Kapuściński’s legacy: was he the creator of a legitimate fusion of art and fact, or Africa’s own Kipling?

Helen Schulman MY FATHER, THE GARBAGE HEAD
When the death of a parent becomes the less horrifying option.

Arika Okrent AMONG THE KLINGONS
The subset of a subset: a linguist explores the devoted underworld of Klingon-speaking Trekkies.

LOST & FOUND

Michael Kobre on Harvey Kurtzman’s war comics

Irina Reyn on Anastasya Verbitskaya’s Keys to Happiness

READABLE FEAST

Leigh Newman CONFESSIONS OF A SECRET GAME EATER
From moose-hunting Alaska to preppy Baltimore: the lingering effects of a divided culinary history.

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