Status Updates From One World Two: A Second Glo...

mansoura ez-eldin's "light rain", a surrealist, postmodern story both literally about a woman opening the door from attending an art museum to finding herself back in egypt, where there is a war (or not a war) going on, and figuratively about war, genocide, and refugee survivors and the ptsd that those who have faced it once, or more than once, experience. very relevant re: palestine

daniel alarcon's "absence" is something i have to read for class, but i felt...deeply impacted by it. the impact of language within stories is something that fascinates me; the death of language is practically the death of a culture, an identity, and wari is experiencing that very much in the story. he feels like he has two split selves, each dying; one that wants new york, and one that wants to be in peru.

THAT PLOT TWIST THIS IS WHAT GOOD LITERARY NETORARE IS. NETORARE CAN BE GOOD, AS A MEMBER OF MY DIAMOUR SYSTEM HAS SAID BEFORE. GOOD ON AYSE FOR GETTING WITH HAMZA WHILE MUSTAFA WAS AWAY. HE *DID* TREAT HER BETTER THAN MUSTAFA EVEN THOUGH SHE DOESN'T SPEAK SYRIAN ARABIC. OH MY GOD. I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVED THE ENDING. QUEEN SHIT, AYSE QUEEN SHIT

the shift of perspective to hamza, the survivor of the arab spring in syria, and ayse, the barren wife slowly discovering her sexuality and disidentification with the local women, lewd and orientalist about hamza's syrian heritage, added much more FASCINATING layers to this story. alice melike ulgezer's nuanced touch to the arab spring and syrian men in particular, a thing many people lack, is so amazing

alice knows locker room and "just boys" talk SOOOOOO well. she is SO accurate at characterizing what goes on in barbers shops and other implicit "men's only spaces/boy's clubs"; i've seen the conversations the men have at activision blizzard about their women, i KNOW this woman has heard some stuff from the men in her life. or at least suspected. god there are so many underrated writers in this collection

OH MY GOD HIS RINGTONE OF A CRYING BABY FOR HIS FAMILY NUMBER IS A DOUBLE WHAMMY. CRYING BABY BECAUSE HE CONSIDERS HIS WIFE AND FAMILY NOTHING BUT WHINERS EVEN THOUGH HE'S BETTER OFF THAN THEM AND CLEARLY FAIRLY PRIVILEGED, BUT ALSO BECAUSE HIS WIFE IS INFERTILE AND CAN'T HAVE KIDS (AND IT DOESN'T EVEN SEEM LIKE MUSTAFA WANTS KIDS HE JUST WANTS THE STATUS THAT COMES WITH IT) WHAT AN ASSHOLE

OH MY GOD MUSTAFA IS NOT ONLY A RACIST AND TERRIBLE TO CHILDREN BUT A CHEATER...I KNEW IT

hair salons are the same around the world it seems...

alice melike ulgezer's attempt at writing an unsympathetic protagonist in mustafa is amazing and succeeds through (possibly?) her intimate knowledge of intracommunity arab-nation politics (such as turkey considering themselves "too good" to be an arab nation despite a lot of turkish people speaking arabic, and turkish descending from arabic) and the characterization of mustafa as an asshole playboy racist

vamba sharif >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> viet thahn nguyen i'm so sorry bookbros

THIS IS LIKE THE ONLY MAINSTREAM STORY I'VE SEEN ABOUT SOMEONE WANTING TO GAIN WEIGHT, AND GAINING WEIGHT BASICALLY BEING THEIR TRANSITION GOAL. NEVER IN MY LIFE HAVE I EVEN SEEN TRANS ANTHOLOGIES ADDRESS GAINER/FEEDEE ADJACENT DYSPHORIA; LITERALLY ONLY CIS GAY MEN AND A FEW TRANS GAY MEN, BOTH BINARY, SEEM TO TALK ABOUT THAT. I KNOW IT'S A CULTURAL THING BUT STILL...I DON'T FEEL ALONE IN MY WANT TO BE FAT

mya's sheer feelings of dysphoria about her "underdeveloped" skinny body (re: not having big boobs and wide hips with no belly, which was kinda the beauty standard in the 2010s) was similar to my feelings of dysphoria over simultaneously being too thin, and simultaneously being "too fat" but having no semblance of curves whatsoever. low estrogen people with alienation from their assigned gender at birth UNITE!!!!

i did not have the problem of mya where i "wasn't developed", oddly enough, with regards to my chest. i did not have the problem where other white girls admired my figure for being "delicate and petite"; despite my garish lack of hips even compared to other white girls i had giant breasts even then, a large belly that stuck out like i was pregnant, wide shoulders, and a rectangular figure. i could relate to mya.

OH MY GOD DESIREE BAILEY CAPTURES THE ESSENCE OF FAT ADMIRATION, OF HAVING DYSPHORIA OVER BEING SKINNY AND PETITE, SO WELL. I KNOW IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE A CULTURAL THING AS TRINIDADIAN CULTURES OFTEN VALUE PLUMP OR HEAVIER WOMEN BUT THIS CAPTURED THE CONSTANT FEELING IN MY SOUL THAT I HAD IN MY TEENAGE YEARS WHEN I WASN'T ENVYING MY SIBLING FOR HAVING A DAINTIER BODY THAN ME. GOD. GOD. GOD.

oh so far desiree bailey's "matchstick" is beating out even okwiri oduor's "that balmy september day" by far. something about the opening lines of the paragraph just CAPTURE the very essence of dysphoria without knowing words for what you have, without knowing you're even trans or nonbinary, without knowing what you want for your body but just that you're disgusted with it. god. i feel it in my bones.

okwiri oduor is probably my favorite writer in this that i never knew about before. her short story, "that balmy september day", had the surrealism that mathew howard's lacked until the end, and had a unique experimental quality that ana menendez lacks in her short and long fiction, that i appreciate in both yan ge and bora chung's fiction. would love to check out her longer work

holy SHIT mathew howard, despite being a much more conventional writer by far, is LEAGUES better at characterizing his female characters, even his non pov characters, with interiority and humanity that viet thahn nguyen UTTERLY lacks. it's. it's shocking. it's shocking how one man can be this good at writing varied women but another, more applauded man is just. such a misogynist. christ

WOW, ana menendez. i have never heard of her before now, but her empathy for experiences not her own, her talent for writing fiction that speaks to her diaspora experiences but use metaphors using other diaspora experiences, every word of hers a parallel, amazing. her use of horror genre tropes to tell a wholly literary tale was amazing. the rumination on language and change and capitalism. WOW!

horses was an amazing story, and honestly, if you wanted to read a book that had those old realistic fiction middle grade and ya vibes that an advanced reader would read in 3rd-5th grade, it's got those vibes. heidi north-bailey is my second favorite author in this collection so far, second to the fantastic yewande omotoso, with her amazing grasp on sexuality and relationships. would love to read their books

Viet thahn Nguyen I love the shit out of your writing style and how you write imagery and cinematic descriptions but do you have to have the main character who is 13 talk about a 13 year old girl's and his mom's nipples wtf

I'm really enjoying "The Leftovers". It's a well written story, very intriguing, and I feel like the unnamed female main character who's husband just died is a LITTLE less straight than she let on, what with her describing how attractive Juliet is and then when Juliet is hitting on her she's like "Why is she doing this? I am not a homosexual, she knows this." Like, girl, I know a repressed pansexual when I see one.