Literal Magazine

Essay

From The Book of Explanations Instinct Enraptured by Pain

Tedi López Mills

English translation by Tanya Huntington The body stretches out in bed. Eyes open to gaze at the curtain and the thread of daylight that crosses over to the white wall.…

Essay

Derek Walcott en Xalapa

Adolfo Castañón

Huyendo de la persecución política, el poeta venezolano Rafael Cadenas se refugió en la Isla de Trinidad entre 1952 y 1956. Ahí cayó en sus manos un pequeño libro que…

Essay

Can You Keep a Secret? Well, Translators Can’t

Tanya Huntington

In fact, that is pretty much what we do: take the best-kept secrets of a literary tradition and reveal them to readers of other languages –generally, our own native tongues.…

Essay

Oppression Never Sleeps

Tony Díaz

When the Nazis first set fire to books, there were some people who said, “Don’t worry, they’re burning only paper.” Other people formed the Resistance. We are part of the…

Essay

El malestar en la teoría

David Medina Portillo

No sé dónde leí que en el panorama del arte contemporáneo la estética se limita al estudio de la belleza y, en cambio, el arte sólo es competencia de una…

Essay

15M and a (More or Less) Revolutionary Tradition

El 15M y la tradición (más o menos) revolucionaria

Ramón González Férriz

English translation by Tanya Huntington The movement that physically and symbolically occupied Puerta del Sol on May 15, 2011 seemed to be a spontaneous outburst that had emerged at a…

Essay

Egypt Two Years Later

Egipto dos años después

Heba Gowayed

Political change, particularly grassroots revolutionary change, is often a non-linear, messy process. From 1989 we learned that even with the end of the Cold War and the fall of the…

Essay

YoSoy132 después de Atenco De la Primavera Mexicana a un Verano Peligroso

Carlos Puig

El 13 de mayo de 2012 me reuní con Enrique Peña Nieto. Era domingo. Yo estaba ahí como parte del trabajo de reporteo para un perfil del candidato priísta que…

Essay

Philip Roth: The Struggle With Writing Is Over

Sven Birkerts

The Relation Between Writer and Material, Volition and Production. Philip Roth has said he is done with writing. He told an interviewer for a French journal. It was not an…

Essay

Octavio Paz y los narradores del Boom

Malva Flores

“Los hambrientos peces fantásticos” Este año se conmemora el 15 aniversario luctuoso de Octavio Paz, cuya muerte ocurrió el 19 de abril de 1998. En estas páginas, Malva Flores recuerda,…

Essay

The Limits of Communication

Los límites de la comunicación

Jodi Dean

Networked information technologies have been the means through which people have been subjected to the competitive intensity of neoliberal capitalism. Enthusiastically participating in personal and social media—I have broadband at…

Essay

Regulation

Reglamentación

Julian Baggini

The other day, as I was cleaning my hob, I accidentally knocked the switch and turned the gas on. I didn’t notice at the time. So two hours later, when…