The Paris Review

I close in on facts fine as sugar poured from a bottle labeled salt, comprehend nothing. I hear a knock, then another, go to the door but no one’s there. I unlock it and leave it open. When the bottle’s empty a note pops out, its paper faded as the g

All summer the half voice lurked behind me & I played deaf for days for to live To not write about it to use my body Part the river’s flesh to operate Machinery is human too to love & for once stay awake through it all. Now it comes like the deer sle

Bea walks into the classroom wearing the clothes she had on the day before. The Teacher understands that this is going to be a bad day. Bea’s hair is uncombed, face unwashed. She arrives precisely twelve seconds late. Not so late that the Teacher has

In life if I could say for sure what I have loved there would be no tunnel needed for any inner or earthly transport. Everywhere I turned there would appear only the blinding clubs of the sun and when I thought of escape I would thank a dead man for

I’ve always had a problem with introductions. To me, they don’t matter. It’s either you know me or you don’t—you get? If you don’t, the done. Simple. Kick me out of the house at fifteen—a main thing you need to know is that I am a hustler through and

They broke into houses,my sisters. The empty ones,just built, where nobody had yettried to sleep. Little moundsof sawdust still in the corners,no floorboards loose.I imagine them being the wayI’ve seen them be with horses,hands gentle on the walls—af

for Harry Mphanza We have changed a great many of our colonial place names since independence, but we have kept the name of Livingstone out of a deep respect. —Siloka Mukuni, chief of the Leya People At the onset of my ingenious plan, the sun barely

How quickly we’re skimming through time,leaving behind usa trail of muffin crumbsand wet towels and hotel soapslike white stones in the forest.But something’s eroded them:we can’t trace them backto that meadow where we began so eagerlywith the berry-

Lara was supposed to have breakfast with Selin, a friend from middle school who had a long layover in Paris. It was eight thirty, and Lara was frustrated not to have the morning to herself before teaching in the afternoon. She loved the early, luxuri

I’m on the train, traveling alone, with two seats to myself. I have to use the restroom. Without thinking about it carefully, I ask a couple across the aisle if they would please watch my things for me for a moment. Then I take a closer look at them

Imagine you at the beginning of thelongest walk of your life, no thought given toshoes, socks, toothpaste, hats, and the otherrip-rap, nothing of watches or water, sleepingon the ground or in hay,setting out for the east, for Padua,for Venice, no kno

In the year of our Lord 687, in cause of an early, wet spring, the body of Saint Cuthbert was laid in the ground to rest. On the tomb were figured angels and seraphim of plain but wonderful design. And among these flitted cherubs, like apricots set i

RABIH AL AMEDDINE’s most recent novel is The Angel of History. His next, The Wrong End of the Telescope, will be published by Grove in fall 2021. MARGARE TATWOOD is a Canadian poet, novelist, and essayist. A new collection, Dearly, will be published

Cover: c Troy Michie, courtesy of Company Gallery, photography by Daniel Terna. Page 34, the Shirley Hazzard Papers, 1946–2010, the Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Columbia University in the City of New York, courtesy of the Shirley Hazzard Estate;

Susannah Harrison, “Songs in theNight; By a Young Woman, Under HeavyAfflictions,” didn’t touch him, but MorrisonHeady traveled by stage from Louisvilleto touch Laura Bridgman, whodemanded that Helen Keller wash her hands. Helenwould later touch many

I understand—the no one cares billboardlooms over the exit ramp; Nancy has lost her placein her novel for the umpteenth time; the Labhas dysplasia. Overhead, a speciesof blank Midwestern sky fallsopen like a journal you buy full of hope,then leave in

an excerpt from The Ferguson Report: An Erasure City officials have frequently asserted that the harsh and disparate results of Ferguson’s law enforcement system do not indicate problems with police or court practices, but instead reflect a pervasive

In summer, our neighborhood quiets in phases. The quieting begins in May. Schools give their older kids, the seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds, a month off to prepare for the baccalaureate exams. Following a ritual as old as our parents, the students

Weeks on my back, counting stars not up there, cutting quick close corners in the wheelchair Ralph kept moving true as oil, questions silent in my mouth after hearing a ragged sound rattle loose from other souls as if within my own body, trying not t

“WAIT TILL I TURNT HIS OFF. NOW.” “That noise. Whatever is it?” “The Hoover was running.” “How’s that?” “I said, I was running the vacuum.” “Not that. Outside. Listen.” Rosie leaned over the banister. “Oh, it’s the bee, dear.” “Bee nothing. A thousan

Guy walks up to me in the park and says, “My girlfriend killedJames Brown,” and I start to say, “Do I know you?” butI don’t want to miss out on the story, so I say, “No lie!” and he says,“Yeah, I got bumped up to first class, and when I saw whomy sea

Editor Emily Nemens Managing Editor Hasan Altaf Online Editor Nadja Spiegelman Assistant Online Editor Brian Ransom Assistant Editor Lauren Kane Poetry Editor Vijay Seshadri Art Editor Charlotte Strick Southern Editor John Jeremiah Sullivan London Ed