The New York Times is temporarily ceasing news operations in Russia following legislation passed by Putin’s government last week that effectively outlaws independent reporting. Other English-language outlets such as the BBC and Bloomberg News have also decided to take reporters out of Russia.
Tonight, New Directions, McNally Jackson, ISOLARII, and Artforum are having a reading of work by Ukrainian writer and artist Yevgenia Belorusets. Belorusets, Margaret Atwood, Oksana Maksymchuk, Val Vinokur, Genya Turovskaya, and Ostap Kin are all expected to read (some in person and some via Zoom). You can read Belorusets’s diary from Ukraine on Artforum.com, co-published with ISOLARII. All proceeds from tonight’s reading will be donated to the Direct Relief Ukrainian Fund and Official Health Ministry of Ukraine. Artforum and Bookforum will have video of the reading in the coming days.
n+1 has a dispatch from Odessa, Ukraine, by journalist Elena Kostyuchenko. Kostyuchenko writes, “Nearly all the young people are involved in defense. They make the rounds of the shuttered cafés, collecting bottles and sunflower oil. They go out to find insulin for the diabetics, because there’s a shortage. They help refugees get to the border. Odessa’s tattoo artists have agreed that each flat fee—about $100—will be sent to the Ukrainian army.”
Rowan Ricardo Phillips—author of Living Weapon, Heaven, The Ground, and other books—has become the New Republic’s poetry editor.
In “My Norman Mailer Problem—and Ours,” Darryl Pinckney writes about Mailer’s 1957 essay “The White Negro: Superficial Reflections on the Hipster,” and its aftermath, for The Nation.
The longlist for the 2022 Women’s Prize for Fiction has been announced, honoring Ruth Ozeki, Elif Shafak, Dawnie Walton, Maggie Shipstead, Louise Erdrich, and several other writers for novels published last year.