2019 | Page 9 | The Common

Living Under Siege: An Interview with Feroz Rather

May 6, 2019 Interviews

Feroz Rather is a PhD student in Creative Writing at Florida State University. His work has been published in such journals as The Millions, The Rumpus, and The Southeast Review, and his debut novel, The Night of Broken Glass, was released by Harper Collins India this year. Through a series of interconnected stories, in which the same characters move in and out, the novel-in-stories describes the horrors of violence in Kashmir today. Read an excerpt online here.

Via email, Neha Kirpal spoke with Rather about Kashmir, V.S. Naipaul’s A House for Mr Biswas (“Isn’t that an extraordinary achievement?”), survival, and Rather’s social role as a Kashmiri Muslim writer (“The only responsibility the writer has is to find his own true voice”).

The Old Man in the Cottage

May 6, 2019 Fiction

From The Night of Broken Glass

Feroz Rather discussed the novel in his interview for The Common with Neha Kirpal.

By FEROZ RATHER

I gazed westward from the top of the hill. The cottage where Inspector Masoodi’s son had recently moved his father stood in the thin clearing by the lake. Its old wooden walls painted over in a dark shade of green, the cottage had two narrow slits for the windows in the front. Between them, a door clung to a feeble frame on rusting metal hinges – a door that I could break with a single blow of my axe.

Travels With Bill

May 2, 2019 Essays, Issue 17, Issue 17 Essays

By MARIETTA PRITCHARD

Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.

—Elizabeth Bennett Pride and Prejudice

Nobody wants to hear about your trip.

—Amherst College Professor of English Theodore Baird

We don’t travel as a couple anymore, Bill and I, except for the shortest jaunts to Boston maybe once a year, in the summer to the Adirondacks to visit Bill’s brother and family, and to the Berkshires, where friends sometimes take us to indoor concerts at Tanglewood (Bill doesn’t listen to music outdoors). So I travel on my own, but more and more rarely: day trips with a friend, twice-yearly visits to Oregon to keep in touch with son Will and family, once a year or so to the Washington, D.C., area to see my sister, rare overnights to New York. I also dig in more closely here at home—not as closely as Bill does with his piles of books and constant reviewing and teaching at Amherst College, but still, closely.

The Silence of Fire

May 2, 2019 Arabic Fiction, Fiction, Issue 17, Issue 17 Fiction, Translation

By HAIDAR HAIDAR
Translated by JONATHAN WRIGHT

Damascus 1969

The war had ended the way it ended. The defeats and victories felt much like a dream dreamt in the depths of time.

The fighter finally came home from captivity, after the war had ended, with gray hair and two scars across the center of his face.

In the middle of their small sitting room, his wife stood upright like an immovable object. Her face overcast with traces of a somber past, she chattered away.

Remembering Richard Todd

May 1, 2019 News, News and Events

“Clarity isn’t an exciting virtue, but it is a virtue always.” I repeat this maxim to my students, and it runs through my own head with even greater frequency. It comes from Good Prose, a guide to writing and editing excellent nonfiction, co-written by Tracy Kidder and the late Richard Todd, who passed away on April 21.

Review: Mudflat Dreaming

April 30, 2019 Reviews

Book by JEAN WALTON

REVIEWED BY WILL PRESTON

A few years ago, I made an impromptu road trip to a Canadian ghost town called Bradian. Tucked into the Chilcotin Mountains about five hours north of Vancouver BC, Bradian lies at the end of a forbidding 45-mile dirt road and was deserted in 1971 after the local gold mine closed. Despite its near-total inaccessibility, Bradian has become a strangely coveted object since its abandonment. The town has passed from one owner to the next, each with their own ludicrous plan for its empty streets: a retirement community, a sketchy immigration scheme, a drug smuggling operation. And as if rebuffing the unwanted advances of a long line of suitors, the town has foiled every attempt to claim it. (It’s currently on the market for $1.2 million.) Writing about Bradian for The Common in 2017, I saw its bizarre holdout as a parable for the tug-of-war between human conquest and the natural world, a reminder that not everywhere should be subject to the drumbeat of development.

April 2019 Poetry Feature: Jessica Lanay

April 26, 2019 Poetry

This April we welcome back TC contributor JESSICA LANAY for a single-author Poetry Month feature.

“First Fall”

“Mouth Piece”

“A Brief History of Shrinking”

“Dear Mountain”

“Erasure”

First Fall

We dampened the cool white sheets
throwing each other, knowing
we are both liars; we didn’t get
what we wanted: me—a chest

Ask a Local: Bina Shah, Karachi, Pakistan

April 25, 2019 Interviews

With BINA SHAH

Your name: Bina Shah

Current city or town: Karachi, Pakistan

How long have you lived here: 35 years

Three words to describe the climate: Hot, humid, dusty

Best time of year to visit? November through March. The weather drops to about 75-80° F and it’s just magnificent.

January in the Jardin de Luxembourg

April 24, 2019 Dispatches

By SUSAN HARLAN

Paris, France

Today the gardens are made of four colors: the white-gray of the sky and the statues, the black of the branches, the green of the grass and chairs and benches, and the tan of the gravel paths.

Honoring Amherst Writers

April 18, 2019 News and Events

For Amherst College’s fourth annual LitFest, The Common put together a Literary Landmarks tour of Amherst College, highlighting locations on campus with special connections to literary figures affiliated with the college, from Robert Frost to Lauren Groff. Building on that effort, we’ve compiled these highlights from The Common that were written either by or about Amherst professors, alums, and even current students.

The Poet in Rome: Richard Wilbur in Postwar Italy by Robert Bagg

Richard Wilbur graduated from Amherst College in 1942, and returned to Amherst to teach towards the end of his life, from 2008 to 2014.

“Richard Wilbur first visited Rome with the American Fifth Army that liberated the city, just behind the fleeing Germans, on 5 June 1944. By 10:00 p.m., his division, the 36th Texans, in trucks, in jeeps, and on mobile artillery, followed the tanks of the First Armored Division into the southern outskirts of Rome, where it paused, expecting to camp and rest within Cinecittà—then, as now, the sprawling center of Italy’s movie industry. Ever the explorer, Wilbur wandered into an abandoned viewing room and found, already loaded into an editing machine, a costume drama set in the Roman Empire. He turned the hand crank and watched a Fascist version of ancient history until his disgust overcame his curiosity.”

All posts tagged: 2019

Living Under Siege: An Interview with Feroz Rather

The Old Man in the Cottage

Travels With Bill

The Silence of Fire

Remembering Richard Todd

Review: Mudflat Dreaming

April 2019 Poetry Feature: Jessica Lanay

Ask a Local: Bina Shah, Karachi, Pakistan

January in the Jardin de Luxembourg

Honoring Amherst Writers

The Poet in Rome: Richard Wilbur in Postwar Italy by Robert Bagg

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