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Not an ending, a beginning: notes on Occupy Wall Street

OWS General assembly

In the past few weeks friends and family from around the country have asked me, with a deep urgency in their tone: ‘What is it like to be there? What does it feel like? How would you describe it?’ These questions throw me because, like any project of describing life as it happens around you, when you are very much in it, it feels impossible sometimes. And so instead of describing what Occupy Wall Street feels like I say: ‘It is all happening so fast, it changes everyday, it is overwhelming, I am tired but I am also excited again, I’ve made new friends, new lovers and new enemies, I couldn’t have imagined my life would be like this a month ago.’ ... read more

Written by Manissa McCleave Maharawal on 17-10-2011, 1 user comment

So real it hurts: notes on Occupy Wall Street

occupy-wall-street-green-climateI first went down to Occupy Wall Street last Sunday, almost a week after it had started. I didn't go down before because I, like many of my other brown friends, was wary of what we had heard or just intuited that it was mostly a young, white male scene. When I asked friends about it they said different things: that it was really white; that it was all people they didn't know; and that they weren't sure what was going on. But after hearing about the arrests and police brutality on Saturday, September 24th and after hearing that thousands of people had turned up for their march I decided I needed to see this thing for myself. ... read more

Written by Manissa McCleave Maharawal on 11-10-2011, 7 user comments

Hari Kunzru: These riots reveal some unpalatable home truths

Hari Kunzru is the author of the novels Gods without Men and The Impressionist. He lives in Hackney, east London. He has kindly given permission to republish his Guardian article on the recent riots.

Property on fire, London

There's nothing like fear and hatred to sharpen the senses. The riots have shown Britain some unpalatable truths about itself, making it impossible to hold on to a certain Whiggish story about social progress which, in the teeth of the evidence, we have persisted in telling about ourselves. ... read more

Written by Editorial team on 15-08-2011, 6 user comments

International writings: Robin Hemley reflects on ‘Queen for a day’

robin_hemleyRobin Hemley is the author of eight books, and his stories and essays have appeared in the New York Times, New York Magazine, Chicago Tribune, and many literary magazines and anthologies. He is the editor of Defunct magazine, where this piece was first published. Robin received his MFA from the Iowa Writers Workshop; he currently directs the Nonfiction Writing Program at the University of Iowa and lives in Iowa City.

Queen for a day

The photo on

Written by Editorial team on 20-05-2011, No comments

International writings: Aaron Bady on the moral fabric of the American state

zunguzunguCalifornian writer and academic Aaron Bady continues our series of regular cross-posts from international writers or journals with similar political or aesthetic sensibilities to Overland. See more of Aaron Bady's work at zunguzungu, where this piece was originally published.

Ignorance and the moral fabric of the American state ... read more

Written by Editorial team on 22-04-2011, No comments

International writings: Stephen Henighan on Berlin and bohemia

Stephen Henighan continues our series of regular cross-posts from international writers or journals with similar political or aesthetic sensibilities to Overland.

Stephen Henighan by Lorena LeijaStephen Henighan is a celebrated writer of non-fiction, novels and short stories. He was born in Hamburg, Germany to an English mother and a father whose parents were Scots-Irish immigrants to New York. His parents met in Yemen, and by the age of nine Stephen had lived in seven houses in four countries. The remainder of his upbringing took place on a farm in Eastern Ontario. He earned an MA in English literature and creative writing from Concordia University in Montreal, and a PhD in Spanish American literature from the University of Oxford. Stephen has lived, worked and travelled in many countries. He currently teaches Spanish American literature at the University of Guelph, Ontario.

His most recent book, A Grave in the air, is a collection of recent short stories. Visit Stephen online at stephenhenighan.com.

This piece was originally published in Geist.

... read more

Written by Editorial team on 11-04-2011, No comments

International writings: Elizabeth Kadetsky on Naked City

Elizabeth Kadetsky continues our series of regular cross-posts from international writers or journals with similar political or aesthetic sensibilities to Overland.

elizabethkadetskyElizabeth Kadetsky's short stories have been chosen for a Puschart Prize, Best New American Voices and Best American Short Stories notable stories of 2009, and her personal essays have appeared in the New York Times, Santa Monica Review, Antioch Review and elsewhere. She has been a fellow at MacDowell Colony, Ucross Foundation, Djerassi Resident Artists Program and the St. James Centre for Creativity in Malta. A 25-year practitioner of Iyengar and Ashtanga yoga, she lived in India as a Fulbright scholar and wrote a memoir about her studies with the yogi BKS Iyengar, First There Is a Mountain, published in 2004 by Little, Brown. She is visiting assistant professor of creative writing in the MFA program at Penn State.

... read more

Written by Editorial team on 25-03-2011, 1 user comment

Hari Kunzru: Address to the European Writers Parliament

This is the first of what will become regular cross-posts from international writers or journals with similar political or aesthetic sensibilities to Overland.

Over the last few years, the Overland blog has built a small but flourishing community of writers debating politics and culture from a largely Australian perspective. The new cross-posts aim to build on those discussions, and forge some links with likeminded people overseas.

hari_kunzruHari Kunzru is the author of the novels The Impressionist (2002), Transmission (2004) and My Revolutions (2007), as well as a short story collection, Noise (2006). His work has been translated into twenty-one languages and won him prizes including the Somerset Maugham award, the Betty Trask prize of the Society of Authors and a British Book Award. In 2003 Granta named him one of its twenty best young British novelists. Lire magazine named him one of its 50 ‘écrivains pour demain’. He is Deputy President of English PEN, a patron of the Refugee Council and a member of the editorial board of Mute magazine. His short stories and journalism have appeared in diverse publications including The New York Times, Guardian, New Yorker, Washington Post, Times of India, Wired and New Statesman. His fourth novel, Gods Without Men, will be published in August 2011. He lives in New York City. ... read more

Written by Editorial team on 11-03-2011, 7 user comments