Winter 2008

Volume 84/1

• Special cover and feature by Chris Ware • Neil Shea and David Morris on Ramadi • Nicholas Schmidle and Malcom Garcia on Kabul • Paintings by Daniel Heyman and Fernando Botero • Poetry by William Logan and Albert Goldbarth • Essays by Roberto Bolaño and Jane Hirshfield • Floyd Skloot on writing • Werner Herzog and Salman Rushdie on Ryszard Kapuściński

Winter 2008

Volume 84, Number 1

Print: $14.00

Digital download: $14.00

Essays

ESSAYS / ISSUE: Winter 2008

Justice: Four Windows

By Jane Hirshfield

ESSAYS / ISSUE: Winter 2008

Revisiting Afghanistan: A Conversation with Najibullah

By Alan Brody

Criticism

CRITICISM / ISSUE: Winter 2008

Book Notes

Art

ART / ISSUE: Winter 2008

Jordan W. Lint, Installment #1

By Chris Ware

ART / ISSUE: Winter 2008

Dead-Eye Comic

By Ross MacDonald

Poetry

POETRY / ISSUE: Winter 2008

The Poppy Fields of Afghanistan

By Albert Goldbarth

POETRY / ISSUE: Winter 2008

The Gothic silhouette and flying spire

By Adam Kirsch

POETRY / ISSUE: Winter 2008

Dante’s Folly

By William Logan

POETRY / ISSUE: Winter 2008

Empty Nest

By Lisa Russ Spaar

/ ISSUE: Winter 2008

His Stupid Heart

By Marcela Valdes

/ ISSUE: Winter 2008

American Labasha

By Daniel Alarcón

/ ISSUE: Winter 2008

Nocturne with a Dictator

By Oliver de la Paz

/ ISSUE: Winter 2008

All the Country Will Be Shaking

By J. Malcolm Garcia

/ ISSUE: Winter 2008

I Make Myself Unimportant: A Symposium on the Life and Work of Ryszard Kapuściński

By Ted Genoways

/ ISSUE: Winter 2008

The Last Dead

By Drew Johnson

/ ISSUE: Winter 2008

Family Scene

/ ISSUE: Winter 2008

Ramadi Nights

/ ISSUE: Winter 2008

That Is All Of Me

By J. Malcolm Garcia

/ ISSUE: Winter 2008

Bonsai

/ ISSUE: Winter 2008

The Sledgehammer Argument of General Massu

/ ISSUE: Winter 2008

Trophy Town

By David J. Morris

/ ISSUE: Winter 2008

Letters from a Jilted Lover

By Asim Rafiqui

/ ISSUE: Winter 2008

After the rabbi’s game repeating back

By Adam Kirsch

/ ISSUE: Winter 2008

The Prisoner

By Craig Morgan Teicher

/ ISSUE: Winter 2008

Democracy is Not a Postcard

By Nicholas Schmidle

/ ISSUE: Winter 2008

We Are Ready to Die

By Nicholas Schmidle

/ ISSUE: Winter 2008

The Blister

By George Witte

/ ISSUE: Winter 2008

The First Fire

By Craig Morgan Teicher

/ ISSUE: Winter 2008

Art Born of the Need to Tell

By Daniel Heyman

/ ISSUE: Winter 2008

Dirge

By Elisabeth Murawski

/ ISSUE: Winter 2008

Raised by Wolves

By Craig Morgan Teicher

/ ISSUE: Winter 2008

Botero’s Abu Ghraib

By Fernando Botero

/ ISSUE: Winter 2008

I. Or, the Anchorite Who is Dying By Degrees

By Patricia Lockwood

/ ISSUE: Winter 2008

continental divide

By D.A. Powell

/ ISSUE: Winter 2008

Self-Immolation

By Jerzy M. Nowak

/ ISSUE: Winter 2008

II. Or, the Confessor Who Greens the Garden

By Patricia Lockwood

/ ISSUE: Winter 2008

When the Clock Stops

By Floyd Skloot

/ ISSUE: Winter 2008

Looking for the Road

By Breyten Breytenbach

/ ISSUE: Winter 2008

III. Or, the Illuminator Who Reads to Islanders

By Patricia Lockwood

/ ISSUE: Winter 2008

Denis Johnson’s Higher Power

By Philip Connors

/ ISSUE: Winter 2008

What Was Worst

By Werner Herzog

/ ISSUE: Winter 2008

Kubota Writes to José Arcadio Buendía

By Garrett Hongo

/ ISSUE: Winter 2008

If It Amounts to Torture

By Ted Genoways

/ ISSUE: Winter 2008

The Emperor’s Deathbed: An Exchange

/ ISSUE: Winter 2008

José Sanchez’s First Week in the Cell

By Stefi Weisburd

Contributor Profiles

Chris Ware

Chris Ware lives in Oak Park, Illinois, and is the author of Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth. He is currently serializing two new graphic novels in his ongoing periodical The ACME Novelty Library, the nineteen

Jane Hirshfield

Jane Hirshfield is the author of six collections of poetry, including After (HarperCollins, 2006) and Given Sugar, Given Salt (HarperCollins, 2001), finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.