Freeman's: Power
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- $2.99
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- $2.99
Publisher Description
The “fresh, provocative, engrossing” literary journal explores the nature of power in its various forms with new stories, essays, and poetry (BBC.com).
Spouse to spouse, soldier to citizen, looker to gazed upon, power is never static: it is either demonstrated or deployed. This thought-provoking issue of the acclaimed literary anthology Freeman’s explores who gets to say what matters in a time of social upheaval.
Margaret Atwood posits it is time to update the gender of werewolf narratives. Aminatta Forna shatters the silences which supposedly ensured her safety as a woman of color walking in public spaces. The narrator of Lan Samantha Chang’s short story finally wrenches control of the family’s finances from her husband only to make a fatal mistake. Meanwhile the hero of Tahmima Anam’s story achieves freedom by selling bull semen. Booker Prize winner Ben Okri watches power stripped from the residents of Grenfell Tower by ferocious neglect. Meanwhile, Barry Lopez remembers fourteen glimpses of power, from the moment he hitched a ride on a cargo plane in Korea to the glare he received from a bear traveling with her cubs in the woods, asking—do you intend me harm?
Featuring work from brand new writers Nicole Im, Jaime Cortez, and Nimmi Gowrinathan, as well as from some of the world’s best storytellers, including US poet laureate Tracy K. Smith, Franco-Moroccan writer Leïla Slimani, and Turkish novelist Elif Shafak, Freeman’s: Power escapes from the headlines of today and burrows into the heart of the issue.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The latest installment in a series of themed anthologies from Freeman (How to Read a Novelist) explores, as his introduction notes, multiple "vectors of power," and not simply the "flagrant and breathtaking abuses of power ongoing right now." The selections range from prose nonfiction to poetry and graphic essay, and come from such long-established authors as Margaret Atwood and Julia Alvarez, as well as newer voices like Nicole Im and Edouard Louis. In "A Note on Penelope' & Rereading the Classics,' " Alvarez recalls breaking with the domination of the literary canon by "works mostly by white male writers." In "On Sharks and Suicide," Im writes intimately about powerlessness in relation to suicidal thoughts. Some pieces are searing in their search for answers. For example, in "Captive," Nimmi Gowrinathan finds the Stockholm syndrome framework inadequate for understanding female kidnapping victims who seem to identify with their captors, because "it is in fact a lifetime of oppressive moments the dark molecular makeup of her politics that matters." From the abstract to the literal, there is no shortage of provocative, thoughtful pieces here.
