The author returns to the landscape of her childhood to discover it has disappeared, along with many political dissidents. The post Bahrain on Horseback appeared first on Guernica.

The author of the Justice Hustlers series talks about writing at the nexus of consciousness raising and commercial fiction. The post Aya de Leon: Fiction of Empathy and Escapism appeared first on Guernica.

The thing was, she had wished a thousand times for a different child. In moments of crisis, she wished passionately that he could be someone else, someone calmer, or more adaptable, or more like her. She hated herself for these wishes because he was

The poet discusses his relationship with the late Donald Hall and the power of art, incarnate. The post Back Draft: Martín Espada appeared first on Guernica.

Michele Filgate, Nayomi Munaweera, and Sari Botton on a new anthology, What My Mother and I Don’t Talk About. The post Plumbing the Silences Between Mothers and Children appeared first on Guernica.

Reckoning with the history of a family that became white through conscious acts of assimilation and erasure. The post Parts of Us Not Made at Home appeared first on Guernica.

After narrowly escaping a violent abduction, Linda Loaiza López has become an activist against gender-based violence. The post Kidnapped, Tortured, and Navigating an Indifferent Court System appeared first on Guernica.

Off-shore, Poseidon built a full-scale replica Greek ship, gold, with life-size gold sailors. The post The Trojan War Museum appeared first on Guernica.

“To label this kind of trauma as ‘post-traumatic stress disorder’ is perhaps a little dangerous, because there's nothing ‘post’ about it.” The post Alex Kotlowitz: Violence and Resilience in Chicago appeared first on Guernica.

I watched my skin split, tender and pliant as fruit. The post Blood Oranges appeared first on Guernica.

An encounter with refugees and the legal system of Greece The post Small Problem appeared first on Guernica.

A new collection of Bette Howland's short stories restores a powerful voice to the canon. The post Their Daughters Were Having Cats Instead of Children appeared first on Guernica.

The writer discusses why motherhood lends itself perfectly for speculative fiction—and the album that helped her during writing and labor. The post Helen Phillips: “Living with the awareness of the abyss is probably a good thing.” appeared first on

Peter was twelve when Jackie Morris moved out of our apartment building, never to be seen again. Would I say he molested Peter? Do I mean he was a molester? The post This Lousy Heart appeared first on Guernica.

The author discusses the limits of identity, the power of ownership, and the narrative beauty of math. The post Catherine Chung: The Vast and the Intricate appeared first on Guernica.

Living in the shadow of Utah’s next big earthquake. The post Before the Shaking Starts appeared first on Guernica.

From the moment I met my son, blue as a cave troll, coated in vernix, gasping in the new air, my mission became to not undo all he was born with. The post Stay and Fight appeared first on Guernica.

How the discovery of an ancestor named only “the slave” inspired the Ghanaian author’s latest novel The post Ayesha Harruna Attah: “I Write to Find out Who I Am” appeared first on Guernica.

I look at her hands, their nails, which are short, unpainted, best for working lemon against wall. The post The Book of X appeared first on Guernica.

The writer on depicting experienced sex scenes, finding humor in the absurd, and the exciting possibilities of the gross. The post Kristen Arnett: It Starts With An Image appeared first on Guernica.

Critic, essayist, and poet Wayne Koestenbaum talks about the reissue of his only novel to date, Circus, while offering a glimpse of his art works, unpublished writings, and family archive. The post Wayne Koestenbaum: “I use obscene as a term of prai

We’d never seen the Buddha before and we’d searched my grandfather’s drawers hundreds of times. (I was especially drawn to what he called his French postcards, topless women posing like kittens.) The post Crimes of Opportunity: (Excerpts from Maggie

On a trip to Alabama, reckoning with monuments, myths, and To Kill a Mockingbird. The post An Infrastructure of Innocence appeared first on Guernica.

The tick doesn’t know that it is strong enough to kill a full-grown human. It only knows that it is hungry. The post Beautiful in the Distance appeared first on Guernica.

Coming to terms with a sibling's suicide. The post Where Disease Stopped and My Brother Began appeared first on Guernica.

Not necessarily for the male gaze, heels can exemplify an assertive personality, a refusal to be ignored. The post The Power of High Heels appeared first on Guernica.

The writer on resisting racist ableist erasure in her latest essay collection about disability justice. The post Becoming a Map for Survival: Interview with Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha appeared first on Guernica.

The author discusses the refugee crisis, US foreign policy, and the problem of ‘narrative scarcity’ for marginalized and minority populations. The post Viet Thanh Nguyen: Writing to Re-member appeared first on Guernica.

The author of Loudermilk reflects on “the weirdest form of history writing” she's ever done. The post How I Wrote Certain of My (Fake) Poems appeared first on Guernica.

“After you die,” Sadiq says, “the doctors want to study your body. To see how you lived so long.” The post Case History: Anna Agrees to an Autopsy appeared first on Guernica.