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ABOUT THE BOOK

As our world is transformed by the coronavirus pandemic, writers offer a powerful antidote to the fearful confines of isolation: a window onto lives and corners of the world beyond our own. In Mauritius, a journalist contends with denialism and mourns the last days of summer, lost to the lockdown. In Paris, a writer struggles to protect his young son from fear. In Chile, protesters who prevailed against tear gas and rubber bullets are now halted by a virus. In Queens, after thirteen-hour shifts in the ER, a doctor dons running shoes and makes the long jog home. 

And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again takes its title from the last line of Dante’s Inferno, when the poet and his guide emerge from hell to once again behold the beauty of the heavens. In that spirit, the stories, essays, poems, and artwork in this collection—from beloved authors including Jhumpa Lahiri, Mario Vargas Llosa, Eavan Boland, Daniel Alarcón, Jon Lee Anderson, Rivka Galchen, Claire Messud, Ariel Dorfman, and many more—detail the harrowing experiences of life in the pandemic, while pointing toward a less isolated future. Together they comprise a profound global portrait of the defining moment of our time, and send a clarion call for solidarity across borders.

Praise for And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again

“Mexican American writer and educator Stavans has gleaned powerful responses to the pandemic from 52 contributors who share their experiences in deftly crafted essays, poems, photographs, and artwork…. The impressive cast of contributors—Jhumpa Lahiri, Mario Vargas Llosa, Claire Messud, Ariel Dorfman, Rivka Galchen, Daniel Alarcón, and others—reveal feelings of fear, loneliness, and, for some, a surprising sense of connection…. Although many look optimistically to the future, for others, the pandemic has laid bare a long plague of inequality and hatreds. Stirring reflections to illuminate dark times.”

—Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

“A genre- and border-crossing anthology of mostly translated reactions to the coronavirus [that] juxtaposes styles—poetry next to literary criticism, experimental fiction next to personal essay—in a way that is consistently disorienting and sometimes jarring, but pleasantly so…. Uncertainty is a driving theme in And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again. So is brokenness: broken bodies, hearts, medical systems, immigration systems, and more…. [French Tunisian writer Hubert Haddad’s] story is a collage of fictional ‘false starts, drafts, approximations, [and] broken-off openings’ that describe and evoke the ‘hazy driftlessness’ of quarantined life.”

—Lily Meyer, The Atlantic

“A prism reflecting outrage, fear, bewilderment—and yes, even small joys, such as cleaner air with fewer cars on the streets. It’s left to the arts to make sense of this scourge through eloquence. Ilan Stavans conducts here what one contributor calls ‘a symphony of voices.’ They sing of our despair while beseeching assurance…. Perhaps, in 2120, earthlings will open And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again as a time capsule, to read of their ancestors struggling to survive a year none of them ever imagined.”

—Lanie Tankard, On the Seawall

AUTHORS

Naivo (Madagascar)

André Naffis-Sahely (Italy / United Arab Emirates)

Andrés Neuman (Argentina / Spain)

Maxim Osipov (Russia)

Pedro Ángel Palou (Mexico)

Shenaz Patel (Mauritius)

Francine Prose (United States)

Frederika Randall (United States / Italy)

Yishai Sarid (Israel)

Giacomo Sartori (Italy)

Arshia Sattar (India)

Ana Simo (Cuba / France / United States)

Javier Sinay (Argentina)

Teresa Solana (Spain)

György Spiró (Hungary)

Filip Springer (Poland)

Ilan Stavans (Mexico)

Gábor T. Szántó (Hungary)

Grace Talusan (Philippines / United States)

Lynne Tillman (United States)

Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru)

Juan Villoro (Mexico)

Gabriela Wiener (Peru)

Wu Ming-Yi (Taiwan)

Yoss (Cuba)

Matthew Zapruder (United States)

TRANSLATORS

Ronnie Hope

Paul Olchváry

Hebe Powell

Jessica Powell

Alta L. Price

Frederika Randall

Ghjulia Romiti

Samuel Rutter

Ilan Stavans

Jenna Tang

Jeffrey Zuckerman

BOOK DETAILS

Paperback: $22.00
ISBN: 9781632063021
eBook ISBN: 9781632063014
Publication date: Aug 25, 2020
400 pages
Anthology—Personal Essays / Fiction / Poetry / Journalism / Graphic Memoir / Cultural Criticism
Rights: World, Audio, Film / TV