Terra Incognita – 2004/2005

I wish there were more “international journals” and am pleased to see that this one has survived another year to bring us a fresh new issue. An eclectic and generous editorial vision brings together spectacular photographs of Palenque on the Atlantic coast of Colombia by Oscar Frasser with a respectful view of the “precarious and disadvantageous conditions” of the region, a previously unpublished interview with Paul Bowles (who died in 1999) conducted by Ramon Singh, a journalist, fiction writer, and teacher of American literature who currently lives in Greece, elegant, powerful drawings of the human form by award-winning artist Jeffrey Barrera of Madrid, as well as poems, prose poems, stories, a scholarly essay, a political manifesto, and other offerings in the “galería del arte.”

I wish there were more “international journals” and am pleased to see that this one has survived another year to bring us a fresh new issue. An eclectic and generous editorial vision brings together spectacular photographs of Palenque on the Atlantic coast of Colombia by Oscar Frasser with a respectful view of the “precarious and disadvantageous conditions” of the region, a previously unpublished interview with Paul Bowles (who died in 1999) conducted by Ramon Singh, a journalist, fiction writer, and teacher of American literature who currently lives in Greece, elegant, powerful drawings of the human form by award-winning artist Jeffrey Barrera of Madrid, as well as poems, prose poems, stories, a scholarly essay, a political manifesto, and other offerings in the “galería del arte.” I was particular taken with a beautiful poem by George Kalamaras, “Drinking Tea at a Silk Shop During Monsoon with Sons of an Independence Fighter.” Kalamaras unleashes the power of lyrical language in the service of a good and important story. As always, one of the issue’s finest assets is competent, often exquisite translations (Spanish/English, English/Spanish). If I were to happen upon this work without knowing it had been translated, I would not guess I was not reading the “originals.”