Issue Five
APRIL 2024
Issue Five has questions: How best to lose Eurovision? What is Russia-themed erotica about? And it has destinations, often anguished ones: refugees and guards on the Polish border, Russians in Istanbul, Europe’s noisiest island, early Zionist disillusionment in Palestine, a return to Phnom Penh. Javier Milei literarily considered, Vincent van Gogh’s forgotten friend, Walter Benjamin’s last resort, Hélène Cixous on fiery foundations, philosophy at sea.
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Moscow on the Med
Two winters in Istanbul. If you are a holder of a Russian passport, there are few places in the Western hemisphere that you can go without a visa.
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The size of longing
On Jacob Israël de Haan’s Palestine and Arnold Zweig’s novel of post‑Zionist disillusionment
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The coldest, cleanest water in Europe
Solitary sailing, and the philosophy thereof: What sort of writing is possible when the mind is at sea and so entirely occupied and swaddled?
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Ice queens, sex machines
Insofar as erotica can ever be about something, what is Russia-themed erotica about?
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What an animal isn’t
Two vastly different books — one a picaresque tale, the other a dystopian meditation — both recount a transition from human to animal or from animal to human.
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« Everything starts with fire » — Interview with Hélène Cixous
« The smell was like the sharp notes of a trumpet, a sort of rat-tat-tat like a burst of gunfire, a bombardment. »
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Jesus in the pines
Refugees and border guards in the Białowieża Forest. Scenes of violence play out behind a thick cover of trees, in a remote corner of Poland.
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Jezus w świerkach
Migranci i strażnicy graniczni w Puszczy Białowieskiej. Prastare drzewa ukrywają ekstremalną przemoc.
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« Ça ira! There will be fire and enthusiasm in you »
In search of Anthon van Rappard, Vincent van Gogh’s forgotten friend.