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January 2016

Captivity

January 2016 Captivity Serban Savu Untitled
Image: Serban Savu, Untitled, 2006, oil on canvas, 50x33 cm Courtesy of the artist and Galeria Plan B

As the Northern Hemisphere hunkers down into winter, we’re bunkering in with a variety of captivity narratives. Imprisonment both literal and figurative is in order here, as jailers and captives consider all sorts of confinements. Alain Blottière portrays a season in hell as Rimbaud runs guns and more on the African coast of the Red Sea.  Đỗ Bích Thúy’s deracinated daughter is drawn back into family bonds. Ivana Rogar’s isolated wife takes no prisoners, and Lina Wolff’s jaded young mistress is roped into revenge. Mohamed Nedali’s young Moroccan couple can’t escape the country’s byzantine corruption. In prison tales, Romania’s Matéi Visniec captures a freed inmate’s disorientation, while the Basque writer Ramiro Pinilla voices the multiple ways in which Franco squelched free speech. We trust you’ll find the issue, well, arresting.

Sunset in August
By Ivana Rogar
They were travelers and were looking for accommodation for the night. They would leave early in the morning.
Translated from Croatian by the author
Multilingual
The Release of Mr. K
By Matéi Visniec
There was no one to tell him what to do.
Translated from Romanian by Jozefina Komporaly
The Garden of Tears
By Mohamed Nedali
“Those people there have broken off all ties to God or humanity!”
Translated from French by André Naffis-Sahely
Sage on the Mountain
By Đỗ Bích Thúy
She couldn’t bear living with any of her own sons or daughters.
Translated from Vietnamese by Charles Waugh & Nguyen Hung
Bret Easton Ellis and Other Dogs
By Lina Wolff
There was no avoiding the fact that Paco Parra wanted Muriel all to himself.
Translated from Swedish by Frank Perry