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.
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.
Jezus w świerkach
Migranci i strażnicy graniczni w Puszczy Białowieskiej. Prastare drzewa ukrywają ekstremalną przemoc.
The size of longing
Jacob Israël de Haan’s Palestine, Arnold Zweig’s novel of post‑Zionist disillusionment, and « Israel’s first political murder ».
Noise’s grip
On Malta, noise is the norm.
« We are the winners of Eurovision »
Lithuania has lost the Eurovision Song Contest thirty times.
« Mes esame Eurovizijos nugalėtojai »
Lietuva pralaimėjo Euroviziją trisdešimt kartų.
Photographer, refugee, king
A family’s travelogue from Phnom Penh to Paris and back
Photographe, réfugié, roi
Carnet de voyage d’une famille entre Phnom Penh et Paris et le retour
« Ça ira! There will be fire and enthusiasm in you »
In search of Anthon van Rappard, Vincent van Gogh’s forgotten friend.
From the knacker’s yard
On the fallen animals loved by Heinrich von Kleist & Curzio Malaparte.
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.
Cannibalinguistics
Language-learning and people-eating in Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi's The Centre.
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.
Ice queens, sex machines
Insofar as erotica can ever be about something, what is Russia-themed erotica about?
Last resort
On Dora Kellner, Walter Benjamin and the biography of a hotel
« Everything starts with fire »
— Interview with Hélène Cixous
Hans Ulrich Obrist interviews French-Algerian writer and philosopher Hélène Cixous.
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?
The anarcho-astrologer
Javier Milei, literarily considered
Reviewed in this issue
Jezus umarł w Polsce
Reviewed by Zuza Nazaruk
My Stupid Intentions
Reviewed by Madeline Gressel
The Wall
Reviewed by Madeline Gressel
The Centre
Reviewed by Michael Erard
Ariane, a Young Russian Girl
Reviewed by Fiona Bell
Villa Verde oder das Hotel in San Remo: Das italienische Exil der Familie Benjamin (btb, 2022).
Reviewed by Ian Ellison
Theory of the Solitary Sailor
Reviewed by Ben Carver