Sidelines

Mishima

HALF a century ago, Yukio Mishima plunged a short blade into his stomach and disemboweled himself.

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These days, truth—which makes an appearance every now and then—seems unable to touch ground. It leaves no trace.

Das

DAS is a labor union activist, the bearer of progressive ideas, a perfect hero.

Billie

In anticipation of The United States vs Billie Holiday, a docu-drama directed by Lee Daniels…

Amir

When the poet Amir Hamzah left his native village and sailed for Batavia on the Plancus, he wrote a rather mediocre poem:

Dreams

A famous dream—one that marks an era—is told of Baghdad in the 9th century:

WHAT does ‘roaming’ mean? In this time of pandemic isolation, ‘roaming’—which is always interesting, always full of problems, and thus constantly mentioned in literary imagination—is to leave a place and the past. Sometimes radically.