Autumn 2023

Cover Story

The Grinberg Affair

One of Mexico’s most curious missing-persons cases involves a scientist who dabbled in the mystical arts

by Ilan Stavans

Articles

Alphabet of Despair

The photographic language of Dorothea Lange conveyed order and beauty in a dusty, impoverished America

by Megan Craig

A Burning World

Can poetry truly supply the language to express the ineffable sensations of suffering and love?

by Christian Wiman

Origin Stories

What we know of  Flannery O’Connor’s childhood—and how her views on race took shape—is incomplete if her caretaker Emma Jackson remains in obscurity

by Caroline McCoy

A Turn to the Dark Side

Reckoning with 9/11, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and most recently the Covid-19 pandemic has compelled historians to rethink the Civil War and its aftermath

by Drew Gilpin Faust

Shostakovich in South Dakota

A manifesto for the future of American classical music

by Joseph Horowitz