The Southern Review

by Jessica Faust & Sacha Idell

This winter the new issue of The Southern Review brings together voices from around the globe. Japanese novelist Aoko Matsuda pens a missive from the village in Van Gogh’s “Starry Night,” while Mariana Enríquez provides the story of a sinister family curse in contemporary Argentina, translated by Man Booker International Prize Finalist Megan McDowell. In nonfiction, Dennis James Sweeney traces the collapse of Malta’s most-beloved landmark in “After the Window,” while Joshua Wheeler bends genre by combining New Mexico history, Ben-Hur, and hummingbird migration into a time-traveling letter to Billy the Kid. Pulitzer Prize winners Sharon Olds and Charles Simic each offer two new poems, while returning contributor Chloe Honum’s poetry investigates the history of forced adoption in her native New Zealand. You’ll also find poems by Orlando Ricardo Menes and Anne Starling alongside new translations of Polish poet Krystyna Dąbrowska from Karen Kovacik. This issue features art from Belgian painter Pierre Bergian, whose work depicts the delicate nature of light within homes, and the announcement of The Southern Review’s inaugural James Olney Award.

169 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2019

Reviews

[Jade · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve never reviewed a literary magazine before, and I have little experience reading them. But almost every story and poem in this captured me in some way. Love the experience of having such brilliance in succinct bursts.