Brooke Alfaro’s figurative paintings were becoming increasingly grotesque visions of contemporary Latin American society. Four years ago he picked up a video camera and started recording the intimate lives of Panama City’s more impoverished denizens.
Ned Sublette on Michael Zwack’s commitment to Minokan Vodou culture and his quest to paint “the whole world.”
The controversy over Santiago Sierra’s installations, in which hired laborers perform meaningless tasks, has gained in intensity. Mexican artist Teresa Margolles enjoys a similar notoriety: she finds tools for commentary on social unrest in the morgue.
Guyanese artist Stanley Greaves refers to himself as a maker of things, and it’s no coincidence that the people in his paintings are always holding objects. London-based researcher and writer Anne Walmsley has been in dialogue with Greaves for 10 years.
The distinctive language and structure of Erna Brodber’s novels comes as much from James Joyce’s Ulysses as from the polyphonic vernacular of her native Jamaica. Keshia Abraham queries the author on her excavation of forgotten histories.
Jorge Volpi’ s novel In Search of Klingsor, the first volume in a planned trilogy, is a historical fiction set among the foremost minds of the 20th century in the U.S. and postwar Germany.
A member of Bob Marley’s powerful backup singing trio, the I-Threes, Judy Mowatt was the first Jamaican woman to record a solo reggae album, 1979’s Black Woman. Kwame Dawes conducted this interview with Judy Mowatt in late 2003.
Cofounder of the influential reggae group Third World, Ibo Cooper produced some of the most dynamic and sophisticated reggae tunes ever recorded. As songwriter, keyboardist and vocalist for the group, he spent 25 years taking reggae around the world.
Nilo Cruz’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Anna in the Tropics has just opened on Broadway. Its director, Emily Mann, queries the playwright on its conception in Cuba’s first revolution to the lectors who read out loud to the cigar rollers.
Jesús Tenreiro-Degwitz is a renowned Venezuelan architect and esteemed teacher whose buildings reflect his concern for truth and for the improvement of living conditions for the urban citizen.
George Mead Moore on Jan Hendrix’s roots in Oaxaca, Mexico and the process behind his giant scans of the leaves he collects.
Lucy Raven on the remarkable self-containment and the discontented political metaphors found in the films and photographs of Juan Carlos Alom.
Christopher Cozier on Nicole Awai’s elastic concept of history, culture, and perspective.
Gabrielle Hezekiah on the wide-ranging explorations of identity found in the films of Richard Fung.
Iveliesse Jimenez on how Zilia Sánchez’s massive shaped canvas works challenge perception.
This First Proof contains an excerpt from Cold Havana Ground. For copyright reasons this content is available in print only.
This First Proof contains the story “Falling Sky.” For copyright reasons this content is available in print only.
This First Proof contains five poems by Raúl Gómez Jattin. For copyright reasons this content is available in print only.
This First Proof contains the poems “Lesson,” “The Idea of Her,” “Time,” and “Island Memory.” For copyright reasons this content is available in print only.
This First Proof contains an excerpt from Loving Che. For copyright reasons this content is available in print only.
This First Proof contains an excerpt from the poem “One a Week With Water.” For copyright reasons this content is available in print only.
This First Proof contains an excerpt from Passing Through. For copyright reasons this content is available in print only.
This First Proof contains the poems “A Bridge, a Remarkable Bridge,” and “Old Surrealist Ballad.” For copyright reasons this content is available in print only.
This First Proof contains the story “Was Me Mudda.” For copyright reasons this content is available in print only.