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international (26)

KATRINA GRIGG-SAITO Assailing Otherness

Monday, November 19, 2012

In "Assailing Otherness," Katrina Grigg-Saito confronts the ultimate food taboo and survives to tell the tale.  Grigg-Saito's essay explores the limits different cultures draw around what's approved and what's beyond the pale. Her experience of learning to cook in Laos begins with the desire to get to the heart of a culture and ends with a discovery about her own assumptions and willingness to set them aside. [...] more

PRAIRIE MARKUSSEN Nothing Special

Monday, July 30, 2012

Prairie Markussen's "Nothing Special" tells the short, moving story of an old Korean woman fighting for permanence in her changing city. Am-yeong Im, given the name for babies not expected to survive, patiently and insistently works for the survival of her home. In Markussen's story, a woman's small act of erasure turns into an attempt to make something last. [...] more

AINE GREANEY Green Card

Monday, July 23, 2012

Aine Greaney's essay "Green Card" recounts a trip to renew the eponymous card in Lawrence, MA. As her GPS tries to lead her to the INS office, Greaney meditates on the obstacles and miscommunications of the immigrant's experience. She thinks over her years in the United States, her departure from Ireland, and her sense of belonging to those who don't belong. Greaney's essay offers a thoughtful meditation on cultural and personal identity. [...] more

MARY MEDLIN Not Now But Soon

Monday, July 16, 2012

Mary Medlin's short story "Not Now But Soon" follows Connor as he crosses Somerville to pay the rent on his girlfriend's apartment. But Afshan is dead, and the tragic event that caused her death haunts Connor, rendering his rent-payments a tangible form of inadequate expiation. The story is shot through with themes of atonement and guilt as it offers an in-depth portrait of a young man and woman as they fall in love. [...] more

ANITA DIAMANT Excerpt from Day After Night

Monday, June 11, 2012

Anita Diamant's novel Day After Night tells the story of four women among the two hundred prisoners of the Atlit internment camp, a prison for “illegal” immigrants run by the British military near the Mediterranean coast south of Haifa. Diamant reads the Prologue and "Waiting" from Part One, focusing in on Tedi, a young Dutch woman prisoner trying to make sense of life in Barracks C. When a train brings new arrivals to the camp, Tedi must resist the urge to remember her home and her lost life, lest the memories overwhelm her. [...] more

BHARATI MUKHERJEE The Going-Back Party

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

A farewell gathering held by the Calcutta Heritage Society of Northern California is the starting point for Bharati Mukherjee's story "The Going-Back Party". Shefali Sinha watches as the actions of the guests reveal the envy, nostalgia, and uncertainty that direct their interactions. The story goes on to offer a wry and insightful meditation on distance and closeness, and on the ways in which our emotions can surprise us. [...] more

KAMELA JORDAN Fried Locusts

Monday, May 21, 2012

Kamela Jordan's "Fried Locusts" evokes a childhood spent in Thailand and a child's world of discovery, rivalrly, and allegiance. Jordan's essay hints at the ways in which the distinction between the exotic and the familiar blurs and shifts. Through a tale of children catching locusts to eat, she raises interesting questions about the nature of home. [...] more

JYOTSNA SREENIVASAN Home

Monday, April 23, 2012

Jyotsna Sreenivasan's "Home" explores exactly the nature of that concept for young Amiya as she returns to 1970s Ohio after several years of childhood in her native India. She is in the position of being both immigrant and emigrant at the same time. As Amiya navigates her return to American culture and second grade, Sreenivasan sheds new insight on what it means to belong and to be different. [...] more

ERIC WEINBERGER Once More With Feeling

Monday, April 9, 2012

Eric Weinberger's "Once More With Feeling" is a story of fidelity and infidelity set in the world of guided tourism. The story's protagonist Adam steers his tour groups around locales emblematic of diplomacy and international negotiation as he encounters one couple who seem to manage a diplomatic menage of their own. The narrative follows him as he studies these two and contemplates a crisis in his own relationship. [...] more

ELENI GAGE Interview

Monday, April 2, 2012

Eleni Gage met with Drum editor Henriette Lazaridis Power on February 29, 2012 for an interview at Newtonville Books in Newton, Massachusetts. Gage spoke about her new novel Other Waters, about living with two cultures and more than two languages, and about aspects of Greek history and of her own family's history. The conversation ranged as well into dicussion of the notion of the curse--a key element of her novel--and how the practical and scientific world and the more mystical world of curses and fate intersect and combine. [...] more

ANNEMARIE NEARY Firebird

Monday, March 12, 2012

The burning of an opera house, a rivalry between two sisters, self-creation in Venice--these are all elements of Annemarie Neary's short story "Firebird". Its narrative threads woven together like those of an opera, Neary's story mines the relationship between Elvira and Betsy (or Betzi, as she renames herself) and their ongoing attempts to define themselves against and with each other. The story is a meditation on identity and art, originality and imitation. [...] more

JAMES CLAFFEY A Clip on the Ear

Monday, January 30, 2012

James Claffey's "A Clip on the Ear" blends a Catholic litany with the rituals of a boy's Sundays at home in Ireland. It's a home presided over by a violent father who, when not away on the North Sea oil rigs, maintains strict control--over his wife, his children, the household rituals, and the litany itself. The boy seeks refuge in the hiding places of his home and in his fantasies of revenge. [...] more

RANDY ROSS One Day in Thailand

Monday, September 19, 2011

Randy Ross' "One Day in Thailand" is the Finalist in the 2011 Drum/Side B Dual Publication Award . Brief, clever, and with a final twist, "One Day in Thailand" presents a comic observation on the experience of the ex-patriate in Asia. [...] more

HAU NGUYEN Immigrants

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Hau Nguyen's story "Immigrants" is a young man's advice to himself on how to navigate a new life in a new world. Part reminder, part exhortation, part warning, "Immigrants" conveys the newcomer's desires for assimilation and independence, and his embrace of the new while holding onto the old. "Immigrants" appears in The Drum as part of our selection from Grub Street's Young Adult Writers' Program . [...] more

GINA OCHSNER Sleeping Beauty

Monday, June 6, 2011

Gina Ochsner's "Sleeping Beauty" is a retelling of the old story, set in Yakusha, one of the coldest parts of Russia. In this version, the beauty of the title is a young girl working in a Russian market, seemingly trapped inside her kiosk until a suitor with an unlikely errand frees her. Ochsner's prose mingles the lush details and fantastic elements of folk tales with the realities of the contemporary world. [...] more

SANDRA JENSEN Square Root

Monday, May 9, 2011

Rural Greece is the backdrop for Sandra Jensen's "Square Root," a story propelled by the complex relationships between a mother and her children, the mother and the men she captivates, and a group of village Greeks and the foreign family living among them. Told from the point of view of the little girl, "Square Root" turns a trip to buy a pet goat into a study of social and sexual power. [...] more

CHRISTIANE ALSOP Presumed Guilty

Monday, April 4, 2011

"What is it like to be the daughter of a Nazi? " That is the question Christiane Alsop sets out to answer in her essay "Presumed Guilty". Reflecting on her father's tales of his accounts during wartime Germany, contemplating her at-times strained relationship with her father over the years, and her own reactions to the ebb and flow of power, Christiane is torn by the equal tugs of resignation and revelation. Revelation wins out, as she conveys the moral, ethical, and personal challenges of living with that difficult question. [...] more

BRUCE HOLLAND ROGERS Snow and Lemons

Monday, March 28, 2011

Bruce Holland Rogers' short story "Snow and Lemons" follows Tibor as he tries to lend purpose to his retirement. His two goals--to bring pride to Hungary's younger generation, and to make his neighbor smile--prove to be more challenging than even he might have expected. A Budapest snowstorm is the backdrop for this story about an older man's persistence and his inspired adaptation to the routines of his life. [...] more

JESSICA YEN Coming Up For Air

Monday, March 21, 2011

Jessica Yen's essay "Coming Up For Air" gives us a glimpse of an intriguing social ritual among a group of Beijing men, and looks further outward to notions of community and family both in China and in the US. [...] more

DUSTIN LONG Icelander

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

In Dustin Long's novel Icelander , the daughter of a local legend of the investigative arts searches for her dog while avoiding her biological impulse to solve the mystery of her best friend's recent murder. Icelander hums with Norse legend, an alternate reality and a cast of supporting characters including a "rogue library-scientist," a pair of philosophical investigators, and a many-faced villain. Built on mazes of time, language, and narrator, this literary fireworks display shows you what might happen if Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple had been penned by Nabokov then run [...] more

SUSAN ORLEAN Excerpt from Rin Tin Tin

Monday, March 7, 2011

Susan Orlean has just completed a cultural biography of the dog actor Rin Tin Tin. In the excerpt she recorded for The Drum , she writes about a visit to Paris' Cimetiere des Chiens, the special cemetery for dogs. Looking for Rin Tin Tin's grave, Orlean ponders the history of the pet-person relationship, and explores the human need to memorialize what we love even as we know we can't hold onto it. [...] more

SHARON BIALLY Veronica's Nap

Monday, November 15, 2010

Sharon Bially's novel Veronica's Nap opens with the high winds of summer in the south of France, twin toddlers, and the pressures of painter's block. Hear the first chapter here, and read the rest at Veronica's Nap . [...] more

SHUBHA SUNDER Climb

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Shubha Sunder's "Climb" layers relationships between cousins, between mothers and daughters, and between brothers and sisters with the tug between two cultures. In Sunder's story, a voyage with Trupti's relatives visiting from America turns out to reveal the stresses within the older girl's seemingly perfect life. [...] more

SANDRA JENSEN The Good Wife

Monday, September 20, 2010

Sandra Jensen's "The Good Wife," set in the South Africa of the 1950s, explores difficulties facing a politically motivated woman who has given up her anti-apartheid activities to look after her husband and young son. [...] more

A. IGONI BARRETT My Smelling Mouth Problem

Thursday, September 9, 2010

A. Igoni Barrett's "My Smelling Mouth Problem" brings together a Nigerian traffic jam, popular music, and a bad case of halitosis to tell a lively story about personal and cultural independence. [...] more

MAUD CASEY Fugueur

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

At the turn of the 19th century, Albert wakes to find himself penniless and paperless, with no memory of his travels and the time he has been walking. In this excerpt from her unpublished novel, Fugueur, Maud Casey writes about a man caught in a fugue state, lost in time and place as he walks through France from town to town. [...] more

theme: comedy

theme: crisis

theme: relationships

theme: family

genre: essay

novel excerpt

short fiction

poetry

under 10 min

under 20 min

under 30 min

under 40 min
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