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Propelled by its strong female leads, the winner of the Freedom Prize at last year’s Cannes elevates a pivotal moment of Sudan’s recent history into a tale of fragile bonds and necessary emancipation.
Much has been extolled about Rothko’s retrospective at the Fondation Louis Vuitton (LVF) in Paris, but the exhibition at the National Gallery of Art (NGA), featuring work on two levels, reveals the breadth of Rothko’s painting through highlighting smaller scale works and explorations on paper in which he employs a heavy watercolor paper substrate alternating with watercolor, ink, acrylic, and oil paint.
A charitable project for the Authors Guild Foundation, most of the stories in this collection are single entries by well-known writers whose diversity is described as “a thumb in the eye of … literary balkanization.” Told over fourteen days from March 31 through April 13, 2020, these are tales told by New Yorkers seemingly unable (or unwilling) to escape the city during the early days of the COVID-19 lockdown.
From its first breath, the narrative is a visceral movement through the hiemal season, imbricating what is familiar and comforting “to honor the dark with festivals of light,” with an ominous, collective disquiet, as boys string garlands of bulbs on the houses of neighbors for pocket money, children skate and sled across frozen landscapes full of hidden treacheries, candlelight burns in frosted windows, and a fireplace roars with erotic charge.
On a December morning, I spoke with Atrek over Zoom—she in Istanbul, myself in New York. Our physical distance quickly dissipated as we bonded over complex mother-daughter relationships, personalities in different languages, and our love of writing postcards.