There was something very claustrophobic about being in Nigeria. Nigeria gagged its people. Nigeria strangled people’s voices. People were often afraid to speak out. People were always afraid for no reason, and so being in Nigeria was the last thing you wanted to do. You wanted to move out of Nigeria. If that would not be possible, then you wanted to connect with people who were not Nigerians. You wanted to know more about the world. You wanted to move into the real world. You wanted your mindset to morph from Nigeria to The World.
Category: world
ESSAY | Trying To See – Erin Ruble
On a sunny September day in the early 1990s, a German couple taking a shortcut through the rock spires on the Austrian-Italian border spotted the head and back of a man jutting from a patch of half-melted ice. The couple, thinking they’d stumbled across the corpse of a mountaineer, told the owner of the inn they were staying at. He, in turn, contacted the authorities, who sent a forensic investigator.
Where Have All the People Gone? Lessons from Russia’s Longest War – Roman Cherevko
Introduction February 2014. Just as Russia was invading and annexing Crimea, the world was watching another case of Putin showing off, also in the Black Sea region: the Winter Olympics in Sochi. So far the most expensive Games on the record, they were meant to demonstrate Russia’s opulence and grandeur, and, of course, to highlight…
FLASH FICTION — Hibah Shabkhez
They do not know that the sun terrifies me.
TWO POEMS – Patrick Landy
the slow inflections of the wind
where rivers run like scars.
The moon hangs quietly
in the blackened air, halved and emptied, decaying since dusk
ONE POEM – Ava Patel
Here lie abandoned gyro crusts and Bundt cake crumbs.
Your fingers shine with olive oil grease
TWO POEMS – DS Maolalai
waking
at midnight
to piss
on the sand dunes
and the sky overhead
like a badly
scratched frying pan.
ONE POEM – Mary Chydiriotis
a chant begins
a loud doleful wail
smear my body in holy oil
adorn my head with your crown of thorns
ONE POEM – Ryan Clark
Below the wall the soil
leeches contaminants
from an artificial hill rising
out of the field like a wart.
ONE POEM – Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana
Hamamatsu: home of unagi pie –– a biscuit made of eel.
Iwakuni: bridge of Samurai –– beer with strangers under blossom.
ONE POEM – Sarah Degner Riveros
Mama hugs
her son. Can we get
horchata? No. Not today.
It’s Tuesday. Treinta tacos?
De asada? Para llevar.
The wait’s worth it.
PHOTOGRAPHY: Tales of a City VII – Seigar
Nobody knows, but I sometimes fantasise about what my partner’s childhood and teen years were like… I feel a great tenderness when I explore this town
Porridge 