Harper's Magazine

HARPER’S MAGAZINE, the oldest general interest monthly in America, explores the issues that drive our national conversation through such celebrated features as Readings, Annotation, and Findings, as well as the iconic Harper’s Index.

Harper's Magazine

LETTERS

EASY CHAIR • French Lessons

FEAR AND LOATHING IN MOSCOW • By Emmanuel Carrère, from “In Moscow, Russians Face the Vertigo of War,” which was reported from Moscow and published in March by L’Obs. The names of some subjects have been changed by the author. Translated from the French by Annie Bouchet.

LIFE, INC. • From “Corporate Insecthood,” a study conducted by Nina Strohminger and Matthew Jordan, which will be published next month in Cognition. Participants were asked to rank various corporations and organizations on a spectrum equating levels of personhood with objects and organisms, the highest level being that of a human.

EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY GAUCHE • From descriptions of trips hosted by Young Pioneer Tours, which offers vacations to “destinations your mother would rather you stay away from.”

TIME WASTING • By Oleg Sentsov, from Chronicle of a Hunger Striker, which is forthcoming from Deep Vellum. Sentsov was arrested in 2014 for protesting the Russian annexation of his native Crimea, and spent five years in a penal colony, where he went on a hunger strike that lasted for 144 days. He is currently fighting in Ukraine’s Territorial Defense Forces. Translated from the Russian by Kate Tsurkan and Daisy Gibbons.

NOT TERRORIZED NO • By Cristina Rivera Garza, in memory of Marisela Escobedo, a Mexican activist who was assassinated in 2010 while protesting the acquittal of Sergio Rafael Barraza Bocanegra, who had confessed to murdering Escobedo’s teenage daughter. The poem was published in Issue 14 of Lana Turner. Translated from the Spanish by Ilana Luna and Cheyla Samuelson.

PRIME FACTORS • By Alec Wilkinson, from A Divine Language, which will be published next month by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

CHEW YOUR OWN ADVENTURE • By Jean Cocteau, from Letter to the Americans, which was written in 1949 after a visit to New York City. It will be published for the first time in English this month by New Directions. Translated from the French by Alex Wermer-Colan.

LOSS IN TRANSLATION • By Lina María Ferreira Cabeza-Vanegas, from “Unspeakable Pain,” which was published in the Spring 2022 issue of The Yale Review.

TERMS OF ENDEARMENT • By Ali Smith, from Companion Piece, a novel, which was published last month by Pantheon.

NAMING CONTENTIONS • From a list of names that are banned around the world, collected by USBirthCertificates.com.

PERMANENT PANDEMIC • Will COVID controls keep controlling us?

THE MATTER OF WAR • Photographs from Ukraine

SORCERER’S APPRENTICE • Looking for demons in a disenchanted world

MANHATTAN MAGIC

THE GIRL IN THE PICTURE • Precocious puberty and its reflection

JOY*

INA

NEW BOOKS

THE SHOCK JOCK OF RUSSIAN LETTERS • On Vladimir Sorokin

THE SECRET HISTORY • Hernan Diaz dismantles the American dream

Faces

FINDINGS