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Monthly Dispatch #35 — May 2026
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A letter from the editor[s]
Last weekend, we had the pleasure of going to watch an adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage at Théatre de l’Odéon, designed and directed by Markus Öhrn. It was unlike anything one could have possibly imagined, subdued realism and poignant psychological insight replaced by cartoonish masks, extended aborted-foetus slapstick, Yoplait bukkake and Grand-Guignol disembowelment—closed out with a moving rendition of Cyndi Lauper’s ‘True Colors’. All in all, tremendous fun (for those who remained in their seats).
Questions of good taste abounded, our delight finding its source not only in the extremes to which the production pushed its gross-out aesthetic, but the particular thrill in being able to think of oneself as in on the joke, of sufficient intellectual, unflappable savvy to see the (wicked) humour, and, why not, in sneering just a little as those who had found it all too much.
But walking home, whatever frisson its provocations had stirred quickly waned. There may not be a more bourgeois, recuperated experience than going to Théatre de l’Odéon, Paris, on a gorgeous spring Saturday evening.
In his introduction to our series on plagiarism, series editor Ben Libman skewers this very situation. Sex, drugs and hurling beefsteaks (or in this case huffing hotdogs through a mask’s unflinching grimace), can now only be funny “or worse, interesting.” Plagiarism, he suggests is one of the last remaining ways to épater the kind of assholes like us who would go to and enjoy a show like that.
But if there is to be anything more to attempts to cock a snoot (if not a notion as mercenary as ensuring worth or even, necessarily, providing purpose), one might hope that such acts might be liberatory. Whether escaping the logic of the market, the dousing conformity of the crowd or simply a hollowed out, unsatisfying marriage, let us hope our provocations push us all to greater freedoms.
the editor[s]
PLAGIARISM
It feels naïve to insist, long after writers first came to understand the full co-optive capacities of capital, that an avant-garde art should as a first order of business épater les bourgeois. What still scandalizes the sensibilities of the respectable classes?
Stone 80 (Quiddity) — Ian Maxton
“This was the Altar Stone
pale-green micaceous stone
History is made by
the reworking and transformation of a material reality …”
Ian Maxton is a novelist and critic. His work has been published in Apocalypse Confidential, Boston Review, Protean, and elsewhere.
Haunting Is Just a Reason — Elizabeth Case
“Inside the old portable that smelled of mildew and lost purpose, I stretch up again to reach the top of the chalkboard. My tooshort corduroys, which bear the brunt of my schoolhouse existence, expose narrow, hairy ankles: joints, sinew, skin, bone …”
Elizabeth Case is a scientist, writer, and artist living between glaciated, deglaciated, and flood-prone landscapes. Their writing has been published in mnemotope, Eaten, and various academic journals. This is her first published fiction.
Ant to Ant — Ansgar Allen
“Some years before human beings became rampant plagiarisers of one another and all who preceded them I visited a man in a small village outside of Lincoln who had the same idea but for ants …”
Ansgar Allen is the author of books including, most recently, The Unteachable (Anti-Oedipus Press), The Tongue Machine (Schism Press)and Jonathan Martin (Equus Press).
Substitution — Steven Cline
“Game: Find a pornographic story, ad, or poem (From places like Literotica etc.) and on the first read through change words out automatically as you go along …”
Steven Cline was born in the city of Atlanta but spent the majority of their formative years growing up in the wild nowhere-lands of rural Georgia. They discovered surrealism through the writings of Franklin Rosemont and the Chicago Surrealist Group, which led to experiments with automatic writing and collage, and to a general disordering of their senses.
Bright Light — Maria-Irina Popescu
“You’ll go down to the basement after you’re done up here, the Director says in our language. To the American he speaks English: Mimi is good cleaner. His accent is a tight knot that bites into his Adam’s apple. The American nods. He’s satisfied …”
Maria-Irina Popescu is a UK-based novelist and story writer exploring the gothic, uncanny, and unsettling aspects of human experience. Their novel Iridescent made Top 100 of the Cheshire Novel Prize, and they are also co-founder Pen Pals, a creative network nurturing Leicester’s underrepresented literary talent.
Beauty, Burning: The Condition Of Music — Daniela Cascella
“What is beauty? The question emerged, viscerally and persistently. It pierced with the ancient force of a presence and a summoning. Here I am. Come …”
Daniela Cascella is an Italian-British writer and editor. She is the author of five books in English that articulate an approach to writing she calls chimeric: monstrous, composite, many-voiced, driven by yearning: Chimeras: A Deranged Essay, AnImaginary Conversation, A Transcelation (Sublunary Editions, 2022), Nothing As We Need It (Punctum Books / Risking Education, 2022), Singed. Muted Voice-Transmissions, After The Fire (Equus Press, 2017), F.M.R.L. Footnotes, Mirages, Refrains and Leftovers of Writing Sound (Zer0 Books, 2015) and En Abîme: Listening, Reading, Writing. An Archival Fiction (Zer0 Books, 2012).
www.danielacascella.com
“[P]oetry is, at an occult or clandestine level, infinitely capacious”: An Interview with Lisa Robertson — Cristina Politano
Lisa Robertson’s Riverwork is a novel that traces the disappearance of a family member in tandem with the disappearance of a buried river that once ran through the city of Paris, the Bièvre. Through French literary history, through the history of labor movements that shook French and European society in the nineteenth century, to the ultra-contemporary cityscape where the river’s traces remain elusive, Robertson constructs a river history that challenges our fixed notions of the ways in which these bodies of water shape the lives of the communities on their banks. I sat down with Lisa Robertson to talk about her pivot from poetry to prose, the vast literary history with which she enters into conversation through the course of the novel, as well as her debt to Edgar Allan Poe. The following is a transcription of our conversation, supplemented by a subsequent email exchange.
Lisa Robertson is a Canadian writer who lives in France. Her first novel, The Baudelaire Fractal (Coach House Books, Toronto, 2020), has been published in French, Swedish and Turkish translations, and was short listed for Canada’s Governor General’s Award for Fiction. Her work as a poet includes Boat, from 2022, and her annotated translation of Simone Weil’s essay on Troubadour poetry, ‘What the Occitan Inspiration Consists Of,’ in the book Anemones (If I Can’t Dance, Amsterdam, 2021).
« Je tourne toujours autour de questions qui s’achoppent » : Interview avec Kinga Wyrzykowska — Cristina Politano
Kinga Wyrzykowska est une écrivaine française d’origine polonaise dont le dernier roman, Princesse, a été publié en janvier aux Éditions Seuil. Récit mêlant différents genres et formes, Princesse aborde des thèmes résolument contemporains, oscillant entre le quotidien et le fantastique, à cheval entre l’Europe de l’Est et l’Europe de l’Ouest, et, à l’image de l’auteure elle-même, jetant un pont entre la ville de Paris et la Pologne provinciale. Je me suis entretenue avec Kinga Wyrzykowska pour discuter de sa transition de chercheuse en littérature à romancière, de sa vision du genre en tant qu’auteure d’un roman qui rejette catégoriquement toute catégorisation simpliste, ainsi que de sa décision peu conventionnelle d’inclure un lien vers un podcast dans le texte. Ce qui suit est une transcription de notre conversation.
Read a translation here.
Née à Varsovie, Kinga Wyrzykowska suit ses parents en France au début des années 80. Elle écrit deux films documentaires et traduit des pièces de théâtre avant de publier deux livres en littérature jeunesse chez Bayard Memor, le monde d’après en 2015 et De nos propres ailes en 2017. Patte blanche, son premier roman paru en 2022 a été couronné par le Prix Françoise Sagan en 2023. Son nouveau roman Princesse a paru en janvier 2026 au Seuil.
Your Very Special No Good So Bad Literary Bio
“Try-hard longies. You know who you are, listing every last publication, in magazines no one has heard of, plus every near-miss award, including that time you were fourth runner up in The Dark Abyss Review’s ekphrastic villanelle contest. The way insecurity is measured in long lists of minor (and sometimes even major) accomplishment[s] …”
Republic [excerpt] — Nerys Williams [02/05/23]
“Writing against music I try to find the momentum of days. The sound of a political poster being unfurled and put into my hands. I could be three, could be four. The banner is neon green and reads Gwynfor. I am smiling …”
Nerys Williams’s first collection Sound Archive (Seren) was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection and won the Irish Strong First Collection Prize. Her second collection Cabaret was published by New Dublin Press in 2017. Nerys is an Associate Professor in poetry and poetics University College Dublin, a Fulbright alumnus and is originally from Carmarthenshire. She lives in Kells Co. Meath. Her third collection Republic was published by Seren in 2023.
Coming in June …
Interviews with Lauren Elkin, M. John Harrison and Liam Sprod; fiction from Nicole Davis and Israel A. Bonilla; extracts from new work by Hélène Sanguinetti (tr. Ann Cefola), Ellen Dillon and Stephen Orr, & more …