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Interview with Hazar Deniz Eker
After a particularly active Current Preoccupation from mid-April 2026 — featuring a walk to the Belgian-French border and Issue Eleven contributor Hazar Deniz Eker — we published his essay, « Feeling political together ». We texted Deniz about it and borders. ERB What is your relationship with borders? Hazar Deniz Eker Growing up between two
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A woman in Tangiers: against erasure
« I detect the head of a mannequin. Then the grains get too coarse. »
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A letter from
« Even if you feel at home in time and space today, you know that you are already in mourning for the future loss of everything that is beautiful. This is the first time humanity is mourning in the future tense. »
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Texting with … Lilia Topouzova
I wanted to show that history and memory are inseparable—and that unsilencing is itself a method.
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Babushka Z CosplayThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
A Ukrainian great-grandmother inadvertently becomes a pro-Russian icon.
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Child KingsThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
« Time is a child playing draughts; the kingship is a child’s. »
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Of trotting horses & angelic wordsThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
I was reminded of Muybridge’s moving pictures while looking at the serial attempts of Ambrogio Lorenzetti (d. 1348/49) at rendering the invisible visible.
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Texting with … Ece Temelkuran (2)This article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
« We are not aware of how defeated we are as intellectuals. »
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So, kill him [at Aulide]This article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
here he is in his bed, so scared he can’t move
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Madame Blueberry’s insatiable wantThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
Madame Bovary leaps into a modern time, a new medium and another biological kingdom.
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Texting with … Vincenzo Latronico
« Nobody will want to read my book if I come across as a guy who quotes Kant on Whatsapp »
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Texting with … Julius Fintelmann
With Julius Fintelmann the ERB’s Sander Pleij texted about a musical shooting on a rooftop…
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Texting with … Johanna SinisaloThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
With Johanna Sinisalo the ERB’s Sander Pleij texts about Finnish Weird…
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Texting with … Avery TrufelmanThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
With Avery Trufelman the ERB’s Sander Pleij text about novelty…
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Texting with … Kamil Ahsan
With Kamil Ahsan the ERB’s Sander Pleij texted about editing a editing international yet regional magazines…
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Blue memoirThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
A water superpower runs dry. A photo series from Hungary.
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Independence and/or DeathThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
Brazilian artist Jaime Lauriano recreated the iconic painting Independence or Death (1822). A scorched earth remains in his own Independence and Death (2022).
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Borrowed time is borrowed moneyThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
« We’re borrowing money from Germany, and nothing with ‘borrowed’ in the name sells. »〖 Found in translation 〗
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The Van Leer headquarters is not a fish tankThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
« The office of the future » is all well and good, but what can be learned from the offices of the past that have sustained? Like: The Van Leer Headquarters in Aalsmeer.
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Noise’s gripThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
On Malta, noise is the norm.
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From the knacker’s yardThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
On the fallen animals loved by Heinrich von Kleist & Curzio Malaparte.
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« People want a clear story, to be taken along. »This article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
Bad writing advice
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«Let yourself be carried away by the madness of inspiration.»This article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
Bad writing advice.
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« Humanity lies only in the details »This article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
Bad writing advice.
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Two palindromesThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
→ Setting of the Sun at West Mountain / Puffing & panting ←→ Worm-eaten Rimbaud / Always knowing whom ←
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« Never listen to people’s opinions on your ongoing work. »This article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
Bad writing advice.
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« You should always think of your readers while writing. »This article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
Bad writing advice
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« Write only in Swedish. »This article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
Bad writing advice.
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Every end has a startThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
In 2005, Yamandú Roos embarked on the photographic project Europeans: one continent, forty countries, 65.000 kilometers.
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« Just tell her how you feel, she’ll understand. »This article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
Bad writing advice.
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Five uneasy piecesThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
How I stopped being an older brother (& other stories)
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On Natalia Ginzburg’s ValentinoThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
On Natalia Ginzburg’s Valentino, newly translated: a Q&A with Alexander Chee.
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Why are you so cold-hearted?This article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
I’m not cold-hearted.〖 Found in translation 〗
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Read between the stripesThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
How do Swedes perceived striped shirts? Great question.〖 Found in translation 〗
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« Para Ati » ➞ « Para ti »This article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
Books are never truly finished.〖 Found in translation 〗
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Panties of the peopleThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
The hall burst into laughter. I was left completely puzzled.〖 Found in translation 〗
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Overalls & eyeglassesThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
The glasses looked surprisingly like the ones in my Facebook profile.〖 Found in translation 〗
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The Mass of MiesThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
« Less is more »? The scale and shape of his body gave the architect Mies van der Rohe an unequaled weight and architectural authority.
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Judge a book by its coversThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
The task is to hold your attention for more than three seconds.〖 Found in translation 〗
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« droid » ➞ « druid »This article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
The translator had probably not been familiar with Star Wars.〖 Found in translation 〗
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« Bidoon » ➞ « Bedouin »This article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
A violent mistranslation I still find amusing was with a poem titled 1965.〖 Found in translation 〗
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No money off a dead woman’s body (& other poems)This article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
« I like my tyrants like I like my heroes. That is, crushed by a giant chandelier. »
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Coagulated soy juiceThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
〖 A killed darling. 〗 Lucia Berlin belonged to a less sanctimonious age than ours.
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Two palindromesThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
→ → Pursuing / you lead me to come to the future.← ← coming to the future, I lead you / demanding.
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The South Bronx did not existThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
〖 A killed darling. 〗 Spoiler alert: it did.
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Marx and the art of natural winemakingThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
The grapes are tiny, burnt to a crisp. It’s day two of the harvest, in late August — freakishly early in a year of drought and heat waves. What is wine?
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Longing + debtThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
〖 A killed darling 〗 And — I failed. I replaced this paragraph.
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Dinosaurs + dolphinsThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
〖 A killed darling 〗 A joke format that endured for precisely one week.
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A can-can dancer performs a Christmas treeThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
〖 A killed darling 〗 Being alone in a new city over the holidays was wonderful and, as it happened, not to be repeated.
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An Odessa conga lineThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
〖 A killed darling 〗 Back to work? Back to play? Hard to say.
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Possession, demonic vs mundaneThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
〖 A killed darling. 〗 Not by the devil but by my fellow mortals.
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K-pop nostalgiaThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
〖 A killed darling 〗 Human idols are hardly perfect.
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On Kafkaesque pedagogyThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
Not the nightmare one might instinctively expect. Franz Kafka and Stig Dagerman on parenthood vs. educatorhood: who can educate a child?
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Back to the officeThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
From the office of the future to the office of the past. What endures?
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The Shizuoka Press and Broadcasting Center is a Metabolist pearlThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
« The office of the future » is all well and good, but what can be learned from the offices of the past that have sustained? Like: The Shizuoka Press and Broadcasting Center in Tokyo.
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The Reliance is a revolutionary pigeon havenThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
« The office of the future » is all well and good, but what can be learned from the offices of the past that have sustained? Like: The Reliance building in Chicago.
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Aarhus City Hall is a GesamtkunstwerkThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
« The office of the future » is all well and good, but what can be learned from the offices of the past that have sustained? Like: Aarhus City Hall.
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Animal Anti-CitiesThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
« A black cat sneaks across a flower bed toward a shed, past some asters, and squeezes into a gap an arm’s width wide. Some worn-down club-goers lay wasted on sofas, sweat and smoke in a late-summer landscape. » On Berlin clubs and Calvino’s cat flâneurs.
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Sugar MouseThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
A poem, plus a note on tongue-like mice and the translation of mice-like tongues.
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Bee Gees FAQThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
Fragen, Antworten, Quintessenzen.
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On paths not takenThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
« Genocide Studies » is a house with many rooms. It accommodates and even encourages a broadening of its central concept. And like all academic fields, it presumes its object of study will always be there.
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Place, non-place, placeThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
« What happened was that we were driving on the highway from Izola towards Koper when we saw a drummer on the side of the road. So I immediately drove to the side of the road and reversed my car and asked if I could take some pictures. »
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The void that fills the voidThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
Relics, and the places devoted to their worship, dotted the map of Europe and the Middle East. Saints, like today’s celebrities, were both omnipresent and faraway, once-vulnerable people who became something more than human.
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Unclaimed, claimed, unclaimableThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
On unrecognized states, micronations and curious border zones.
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It wasn’t the beerThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
How could it be that despite decades of rigorous European unification, of open borders and largely adjusted standards of living, a virus was able to kill up to 40 times more people in one country than in another, only a few hundred kilometers away?
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How to write; or, how to insultThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
Shoulders were slapped, fingers pointed, hearts fired up. Perhaps a little scuffle broke out after class, a boisterous wrestling over insults exchanged. Nothing to be concerned about. Acquiring knowledge was, after all, a combative affair.
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Who will speak European? A puzzleThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
Brussels is a concave mirror that returns a concentrated (and somewhat distorted) reflection of the projection of its continent.
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€ 0This article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
No one would have understood both the sentiment and the absurdity more keenly than Marx himself, whose face has adorned real currencies in more countries than anyone else’s, with the possible exception of Elizabeth II.
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Firsts in spaceThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
A friend of mine likes to say that the moon landing was real, but dumb. On astronautical tokenism.
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Curtain callThis article is available for Members only. Check out our subscription plans to become a member.
An iron curtain makes a powerful canvas. Images from Sven Johne & Falk Haberkorn’s Aus Sicht des Archivs, documenting life in the former East Germany in the 1990s.
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Only stupidity is hereditary
There sits a donkey before an open book, held between his forehooves in such a way that we can clearly see the pages. It is a family tree of sorts, with eight rows of seventeen standing donkeys.