Winter 2020

Winter 2020 cover image

Volume 108, No. 4
Winter 2020
The Yale Review

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Director's Note

Table of Contents

Nonfiction

A swirling pattern on green background
Essays

Notes Upon Arrival

A diary of immigration and lost love
Bhanu Kapil
December 1, 2020
Photo of gears and machinery
Essays

The Anti-Extinction Engine

Langston Hughes and my friend, the apocalypse actuary
Anne Boyer
December 1, 2020
collaged words on white background read in part "only one connecting flight leads from perseid shower delights to a lost..."
Portfolio

The Cultural Construction of Identity

The knotty interrelations between text and image
Lorraine O’Grady
December 1, 2020
Pillars at National Memorial for Peace and Justice, Montgomery, Alabama
Essays

The Hauntologies of Slavery

Finding history and meaning on a journey across the sea
Jonah Mixon-Webster
December 1, 2020
black and white photo of low and heavy clouds
Essays

The Heavy Air

Capitalism and affronts to common sense
Anne Boyer
December 1, 2020
The activist Gloria Richardson walking past National Guardsmen during a civil rights march in Cambridge
Essays

Unbothered

The grace of black nonchalance
Namwali Serpell
December 1, 2020
Portrait of Samuel Delany at his desk turning to look over his shoulder
Essays

Why I Write

Getting ready not to be
Samuel R. Delany
December 1, 2020
various sizes of metallic squares with gold borders
Essays

Wildness

Feminism, identity, and the willingness to be defeated
Maria Tumarkin
December 1, 2020

Fiction

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Drama

On Sugarland: A Play

An excerpt and annotation
Aleshea Harris
December 1, 2020
Black and white photo of books on bookshelves
Fiction

The Reason Why

Yiyun Li
December 1, 2020
close up of a lightbulb
Drama

You: A Short Play

Julia Cho
December 1, 2020

Poetry

image of broken glass. Maxime Bober / Creative Commons
Poetry

The Promise of Threat

Jonah Mixon-Webster
December 1, 2020

Interviews

Photo of Alexander Chee; photo of Julia Cho; photo of Susan Choi; photo of Cathy Park Hong
Conversations

Finding a Literary Inheritance

Four Korean American writers on jeong and the elusiveness of home
Alexander Chee,
Julia Cho,
Susan Choi,
Cathy Park Hong
December 1, 2020
Photo of Aleshea Harris on left; photo of Douglas Kearney on right
Conversations

Signal and Noise

A dialogue on presencing Blackness
Aleshea Harris,
Douglas Kearney
December 1, 2020
Photo of Bhanu Kapil on left; photo of Jonah Mixon-Webster on right
Conversations

The Body in Verse

A dialogue on literary somatics
Bhanu Kapil,
Jonah Mixon-Webster
December 1, 2020
Photo of Sarah Shun-lien Bynum on left; photo of Yiyun Li on right
Conversations

The Merits of Imperfection

Why literature’s best is usually deeply flawed
Sarah Shun-lien Bynum,
Yiyun Li
December 1, 2020
Photo of Namwali Serpell on left; photo of Maria Tumarkin on right
Conversations

The Limits of Empathy

Two writers on the ethics of pen and paper
Namwali Serpell,
Maria Tumarkin
December 1, 2020

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