No. 03
Battlegrounds Real and Fiction: a portfolio on Peru by Daniel Alarcón with Santiago Roncagliolo, Miguel Gutiérrez, Julio Durán, and others; Sam Stephenson buys Eugene Smith's sink; Nora Krug illustrates the life of World War II Japanese soldier Hiro Onoda; new stories by Martha Cooley, Jonathan Lethem, and Keith Lee Morris; poems by Anne Carson, Wislawa Szymborska, Robyn Schiff, Eugene Ostashevsky, and others; and introducing Leslie Jamison.
If You See Something
Gene Smith’s Sink
No. 03 • Sam Stephenson
The wooden light board, with ground glass, that I bought from Pat Smith is an interesting antique, but I don’t know what I’m going to do with the sink.If You See Something
When Animals Conspire
No. 03 • Ben Ehrenreich
Let me begin by telling you how I learned that I sleep with my mouth open.If You See Something
A Wolf That Knows Enough to Keep Its Distance
No. 03 • David Levi Strauss
Night is a wolf that knows enough to keep its distance. —Robert KellyFiction
Testimony
No. 03 • Keith Lee Morris
I’d been sitting there in the courtroom all day, looking at the back of people’s heads, mostly Andy Munson’s.Fiction
The Month Girls
No. 03 • Martha Cooley
I once worked in the word-processing pool of a large, unremarkable business.Fiction
The Night they First Played Monster Eyes
No. 03 • Jonathan Lethem
The first chords, chunks of noise, rebound in the gulch of buildings.Poetry
Two Poems
No. 03 • Eugene Ostashevsky
In a universe renowned for its simplicity / Composed, as it was, of P and –P / There lived a philosopher who became a painterPoetry
Two Poems
No. 03 • Suzanne Buffam
It’s not what you think. / It’s what you think you think / that escapes you.Poetry
An Aching Young Man
No. 03 • Reginald Gibbons
An aching young / man on the street / approaches, stops / me with his eyes / and saying Sir?Poetry
The Old Professor
No. 03 • Wislawa Szymborska
I asked him about the old days / when we were still so young / naive, hot-headed, silly, green.Poetry
Scenes of Hell
No. 03 • Billy Collins
We did not have the benefit of a guide, / no crone to lead us off the common path, / no ancient to point the way with a staffPoetry
The Emperor’s Journey to Shu
No. 03 • John Taggart
There is the emperor’s question / which is after / the question of happinessFiction
Quiet Men
No. 03 • Leslie Jamison
He was a poet who worked with intricate forms—villanelles and pantoums—but during our month together he spoke quite simply.Focus
Battlegrounds Real and Fictional
No. 03 • Daniel Alarcón
In 1980, there were many reasons to be optimistic about the future of Peru, most significantly, the restoration of democracy after twelve years of military dictatorship.Focus
To Burn the City
No. 03 • Julio Durán
On shelves and in drawers, in trunks and boxes, my grandmother hid the artifacts of her old houseFocus
The Complicity of Silence
No. 03 • Santiago Roncagliolo
Many Peruvian authors, critics, and readers are of the opinion that there is no common literary project uniting young Peruvian writers.Focus
Photos from the Land of Light (País De Luz)
No. 03 • Workshop for Social Photography
In 1986, Thomas J. Müller and Helga Müller-Hebron proposed a series of photography workshops through the School of Science and Communication Arts at Catholic University in Peru for campesinos and residents of the marginal neighborhoods springing up on the outskirts of the cities.Focus
Deep Black Holes: An Interview with Miguel Gutiérrez
No. 03 • Juan Miguel Chávez
Miguel Gutiérrez published his first novel, El Viejo Saurio se retira, in 1969; his second novel, La violencia del tiempo, wasn’t published until 1991.Focus
The House on El Pino Hill
No. 03 • Óscar Colchado Lucio
The curtains are half closed over the small, barred window.Focus
In the Belly of the Night
No. 03 • José de Piérola
Ubilluz’s boots sunk into the mud with a dull thud that neither of them paid any attention to.Feature
Everything is Illuminated: My Love Affair with CSI
No. 03 • Delia Falconer
Forget its telegenic cast: the real star of CSI is Luminol.Order A Public Space
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