Guernica (magazine)

Last updated

Guernica / A Magazine of Art and Politics
Guernica logo.png
Editors at LargeMichael Archer, Salar Abdoh [1]
CategoriesLiterary, art and political
FrequencyDaily
Founded2004;20 years ago (2004)
CompanyGuernica Inc.
CountryUnited States
Based inNew York City
LanguageEnglish
Website www.guernicamag.com

Guernica / A Magazine of Art and Politics is an American online magazine that publishes art, photography, fiction, and poetry, along with nonfiction such as letters, investigative pieces, and opinion pieces on international affairs and U.S. domestic policy. It also publishes interviews and profiles of artists, writers, musicians, and political figures.

Contents

History

Guernica was founded in 2004 by Joel Whitney, Michael Archer, Josh Jones, and Elizabeth Onusko. [2] Guernica Inc. has been a not-for-profit corporation since 2009. [3] [4] National Book Foundation Director Lisa Lucas was the publisher of Guernica from 2014 until 2016. [5] [6] Madhuri Sastry resigned as co-publisher in March 2024 [7] in response to Guernica publishing an essay by an Israeli praising the ongoing Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip. Sastry was replaced by Magogodi aoMphela Makhene. [8] Jina Moore served as Editor-in-Chief and co-Publisher until April 2024, when she resigned over the magazine's decision to stand by the retraction of the essay, which she had selected for publication. [9]

Awards and events

In 2008, Okey Ndibe's "My Biafran Eyes" won a Best of the Web prize from Dzanc Books. [10] In 2008, Rebecca Morgan Frank's "Rescue" was chosen for the Best New Poets award. [11]

In 2009, Matthew Derby's short story for Guernica, "January in December", won a Best of the Web prize from Dzanc Books.

In 2009, E. C. Osondu was awarded the Caine Prize for African Writing for his Guernica short story, "Waiting". [12] [13]

In 2010, Mark Dowie's "Food Among the Ruins" was chosen for the Best of the Net anthology. [14] In 2010, Oliver de la Paz's poem "Requiem for the Orchard", F. Daniel Rzicnek's poem "Geomancy" and Elizabeth Crane's short story "The Genius Meetings" won Best of the Web prizes from Dzanc Books. [15]

In 2011, Bridget Potter's essay "Lucky Girl" was chosen for The Best American Essays , 2011, [16] guest-edited by Edwidge Danticat. In 2011, Jack Shenker's "Dam Dilemma" was part of a portfolio of his work longlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Writing in the UK. [17]

In 2013, Guernica won Utne magazine's Media Award for Best Social/Cultural Coverage. [18]

In 2016, Alexander Chee's essay "Girl" was chosen for The Best American Essays , 2016, edited by Jonathan Franzen.

Guernica won the 2016 AWP Small Press Publisher Award given by the Association of Writers & Writing Programs that "acknowledges the hard work, creativity, and innovation" of small presses and "their contributions to the literary landscape" of the US. [19]

In 2017, Guernica won the PEN American Center Nora Magid Award for Editing. [20]

In 2023, Guernica won a Whiting Award. [21]

Contributors and editors

Contributors include Lorraine Adams, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Jesse Ball, A. Igoni Barrett, Amit Chaudhuri, Susan Choi, Noam Chomsky, Billy Collins, Susan Daitch, Marguerite Duras, Stephen Elliott, Rivka Galchen, James Galvin, Amitav Ghosh, Mahvish Khan, Alexandra Kleeman, Eric Kraft, Kiese Laymon, Douglas Light, Sarah Lindsay, Dorthe Nors, Okey Ndibe, Meghan O'Rourke, Zachary Mason, Tracy O'Neill, Daniele Pantano, Matthew Rohrer, Deb Olin Unferth, Sergio Ramírez, Amartya Sen, Aurelie Sheehan, Jonathan Steele, Laren Stover, Terese Svoboda, Mitch Swenson, Olufemi Terry, Anthony Tognazzini, Frederic Tuten, Joe Wenderoth Patrick White, and Yaa Gyasi.

Recent[ when? ] guest fiction and poetry editors have included Alexander Chee, Roxane Gay, Francisco Goldman, Randa Jarrar, Sam Lipsyte, Ben Marcus, Claire Messud, George Saunders, Tracy K. Smith, and Frederic Tuten.

Interview subjects have included filmmaker John Waters, Congressman John Conyers, Congresswomen Marcy Kaptur and Carolyn B. Maloney, Costa Rican President Óscar Arias, Justice Department legal counsel John Yoo, former member of Dutch Parliament Ayaan Hirsi Ali, former Iraqi cabinet member Ali Allawi, artist Chuck Close, singers Lila Downs and David Byrne, and authors Etgar Keret, Andrew Bacevich, Don DeLillo, [22] Howard Zinn, Samantha Power, Bernard-Henri Lévy, Nicholas D. Kristof, Joan Didion, playwright Tony Kushner, and actor Mia Farrow.

Senior editors include Adam Dalva (senior editor, fiction), Kamelya Omaya Youssef (senior editor, poetry), and Eryn Loeb (deputy editor). Previous longtime senior editors include Meakin Armstrong (senior editor, fiction 2006-2022) and Erica Wright (senior editor, Poetry 2007-2022). [23]

2024 controversy over essay by Israeli peace activist

In March 2024, during the Israel–Hamas war, at least 10 editors of Guernica resigned over its publication of an essay, titled "From the Edges of a Broken World", [24] by Israeli writer, translator and peace activist [25] Joanna Chen, which the magazine later retracted with the promise of a "more fulsome explanation" to come. [26] [27] As summarized by The New York Times, the author "had written about her experiences trying to bridge the divide with Palestinians, including by volunteering to drive Palestinian children from the West Bank to receive care at Israeli hospitals, and how her efforts to find common ground faltered after Hamas's Oct. 7 attack and Israel's subsequent attacks on Gaza". [27]

Guernica co-publisher Madhuri Sastry, who was among those who quit over the affair, criticized the essay as "a hand-wringing apologia for Zionism and the ongoing genocide in Palestine", and former fiction editor Ishita Marwah called the magazine "a pillar of eugenicist white colonialism masquerading as goodness". [28] In the article "The Cowardice of Guernica" in the Atlantic, Phil Klay decried the outraged response to the essay's publication and said it "reveals the extent to which elite American literary outlets may now be beholden to the narrowest polemical and moralistic approaches to literature." [29] Journalist and Guernica contributor Emily Fox Kaplan argued that the problem "is that [the essay] presents an Israeli as human. The people who are losing their minds about this want to believe that there are no civilians in Israel. They want a simple good guys/bad guys binary, and this creates cognitive dissonance." [28] Many critics saw the response as antisemitic, including Foreign Policy deputy editor James Palmer, who said it was “one step toward trying to exclude Jews from discourse altogether.”

On April 12, more than a month after the initial retraction, co-founder Michael Archer provided an update on the situation. Archer reiterated that he stands behind the magazine's decision to retract the article, as he did not feel it fit the magazine's established values. As a result of the decision, Jina Moore, who had selected the essay for publication, resigned from her post as editor-in-chief and co-publisher. [9] Archer's statement promised more transparency in the magazine's editorial choices going forward. The statement also introduced Guernica's new publisher, Magogodi aoMphela Makhene. [30]

See also

Related Research Articles

<i>Tikkun</i> (magazine) American magazine

Tikkun was a quarterly progressive Jewish and interfaith magazine and website published in the United States that analyzed American and Israeli culture, politics, religion, and history in the English language. The magazine consistently published the work of Israeli and Palestinian left-wing intellectuals, but also included book and music reviews, personal essays, and poetry.

<i>MIT Technology Review</i> Magazine about technology

MIT Technology Review is a bimonthly magazine wholly owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was founded in 1899 as The Technology Review, and was re-launched without The in its name on April 23, 1998, under then publisher R. Bruce Journey. In September 2005, it was changed, under its then editor-in-chief and publisher, Jason Pontin, to a form resembling the historical magazine.

<i>Virginia Quarterly Review</i> American literary magazine

The Virginia Quarterly Review is a quarterly literary magazine that was established in 1925 by James Southall Wilson, at the request of University of Virginia president E. A. Alderman. This "National Journal of Literature and Discussion" includes poetry, fiction, book reviews, essays, photography, and comics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lance Olsen</span> American writer (born 1956)

Lance Olsen is an American writer known for his experimental, lyrical, fragmentary, cross-genre narratives that question the limits of historical knowledge.

<i>Boston Review</i> American political and literary magazine

Boston Review is an American quarterly political and literary magazine. It publishes political, social, and historical analysis, literary and cultural criticism, book reviews, fiction, and poetry, both online and in print. Its signature form is a "forum", featuring a lead essay and several responses. Boston Review also publishes an imprint of books with MIT Press.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alexander Chee</span> American writer (born 1967)

Alexander Chee is an American fiction writer, poet, journalist and reviewer.

AGNI is an American literary magazine founded in 1972 that publishes poetry, fiction, essays, reviews, interviews, and artwork twice a year in print and weekly online from its home at Boston University. Its coeditors are Sven Birkerts and William Pierce.

<i>The Gettysburg Review</i> American literary magazine

The Gettysburg Review was a quarterly literary magazine featuring short stories, poetry, essays and reviews. Work that appeared in the magazine has been reprinted in "best-of" anthologies and receives awards.

storySouth is an online quarterly literary magazine that publishes fiction, poetry, criticism, essays, and visual artwork, with a focus on the Southern United States. The journal also runs the annual Million Writers Award to select the best short stories published each year in online magazines or journals. The journal is one of the most prominent online literary journals and has been the subject of feature profiles in books such as Novel & Short Story Writer's Market. Works published in storySouth have been reprinted in a number of anthologies including Best American Poetry and Best of the Web. The headquarters is in Greensboro, North Carolina.

<i>The Wilson Quarterly</i> American nonpartisan magazine

The Wilson Quarterly is a magazine published by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. The magazine was founded in 1976 by Peter Braestrup and James H. Billington. It is noted for its nonpartisan, non-ideological approach to current issues, with articles written from various perspectives. Since summer 2012 it has been published online.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Okey Ndibe</span> Nigerian writer

Okechukwu "Okey" Ndibe is a novelist, political columnist, and essayist of Igbo ethnicity. Ndibe was born in Yola, the capital city of Adamawa State, north-eastern Nigeria. He is the author of Arrows of Rain and Foreign Gods, Inc., two critically acclaimed novels published in 2000 and 2014 respectively.

<i>Creative Nonfiction</i> (magazine) American literary magazine

Creative Nonfiction is a literary magazine based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The journal was founded by Lee Gutkind in 1993, making it the first literary magazine to publish, exclusively and on a regular basis, high quality nonfiction prose. In Spring 2010, Creative Nonfiction evolved from journal to magazine format with the addition of new sections such as writer profiles and essays on the craft of writing, as well as updates on developments in the literary nonfiction scene. As of 2023, the magazine has ceased publication, with no information provided about when or if they will resume publication.

Sarah Ladipo Manyika FRSL is a British-Nigerian writer of novels, short stories and essays and an active member of the literary community, particularly supporting and amplifying young writers and female voices. She is the author of two well-received novels, In Dependence (2009) and Like A Mule Bringing Ice Cream To The Sun (2016), as well as the non-fiction collection Between Starshine and Clay: Conversations from the African Diaspora (2022), and her writing has appeared in publications including Granta, Transition, Guernica, and OZY, and previously served as founding Books Editor of OZY. Manyika's work also features in the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby.

Epaphras Chukwuenweniwe Osondu, predominantly known as E. C. Osondu, is a Nigerian writer known for his short stories. His story Waiting won the 2009 Caine Prize for African Writing, for which he had been a finalist in 2007 with his story Jimmy Carter's Eyes. Osondu had previously won the Allen and Nirelle Galso Prize for Fiction and his story A Letter from Home was judged one of "The Top Ten Stories on the Internet" in 2006.

Terrain.org: A Journal of the Built + Natural Environments is an online journal publishing editorials, poetry, essays, fiction, articles, reviews, an interview, the ARTerrain gallery, and the Unsprawl case study on a rolling schedule, with up to five new contributions per week. Terrain.org also hosts an annual contest in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. It is based in Tucson, Arizona, United States.

Dzanc Books is an American independent press book publisher. It is a non-profit 501(c)(3) private foundation. Michelle Dotter is publisher and editor-in-chief.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anne Boyer</span> American poet and essayist

Anne Boyer is an American poet and essayist. She is the author of The Romance of Happy Workers (2008), The 2000s (2009), My Common Heart (2011), Garments Against Women (2015), The Handbook of Disappointed Fate (2018), and The Undying: Pain, Vulnerability, Mortality, Medicine, Art, Time, Dreams, Data, Exhaustion, Cancer, and Care (2019).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carmen Maria Machado</span> American writer (born 1986)

Carmen Maria Machado is an American short story author, essayist, and critic best known for Her Body and Other Parties, a 2017 short story collection, and her memoir In the Dream House, which was published in 2019 and won the 2021 Folio Prize. Machado is frequently published in The New Yorker, Granta, Lightspeed, and other publications. She has been a finalist for the National Book Award and the Nebula Award for Best Novelette. Her stories have been reprinted in Year's Best Weird Fiction, Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy, Best Horror of the Year, The New Voices of Fantasy, and Best Women's Erotica.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Englehardt</span> American fiction writer (born 1987)

John Lewis Englehardt III is an American fiction writer and educator. His debut novel is Bloomland.

John Domini is an Italian-American author, translator and critic who has been widely published in literary and news magazines, including The Paris Review, The New York Times, Ploughshares, The Washington Post, and Literary Hub. He is the author of three short story collections, four novels, and a 2021 memoir. Domini has also published one book of criticism, one book of poetry, and a memoir translated from Italian. He is a member of the National Book Critics Circle. Domini lives in Des Moines with his wife, the science fiction writer Lettie Prell.

References

  1. ↑ "Masthead", Guernica. Retrieved April 19, 2024.
  2. ↑ van Hensbergen, Gijs (December 20, 2004). "Guernica: The Biography of a Twentieth-Century Icon". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved January 3, 2015.
  3. ↑ "Guernica Inc", TaxExemptWorld. Retrieved January 3, 2015.
  4. ↑ "Guernica Inc", 501c3lookup; retrieved January 3, 2015.
  5. ↑ Bloomgarden-Smoke, Kara (June 30, 2014). "Guernica Magazine Names Lisa Lucas Publisher". New York Observer. Retrieved January 3, 2015.
  6. ↑ Dwyer, Colin (February 10, 2016). "Lisa Lucas Takes The Reins At The National Book Foundation". NPR. Retrieved January 27, 2017.
  7. ↑ "guernica-retracts-israeli-writers-essay". American Bazaar. March 13, 2024. Retrieved March 14, 2024.
  8. ↑ Archer, Michael (April 12, 2024). "Moving Forward". Guernica. Retrieved April 15, 2024.
  9. 1 2 "My resignation from Guernica". Jina Moore. Retrieved April 15, 2024.
  10. ↑ "Best of the Web 2008", Dzanc Books, July 9, 2008. Retrieved January 3, 2015.
  11. ↑ Mark Strand, Jeb Livingood, "Best new poets 2008", Samovar Press, 2008. Retrieved January 3, 2015.
  12. ↑ "2009 winner: EC Osondu", The Caine Prize for African Writing, 2009. Retrieved January 3, 2015. Archived January 8, 2016, at the Wayback Machine .
  13. ↑ Flood, Alison (July 7, 2009). "EC Osondu takes £10,000 'African Booker'". The Guardian.
  14. ↑ " 2010 Best of the Net Anthology: 2010 Nonfiction Winner", Sundress Publications. Retrieved January 3, 2015.
  15. ↑ "Best of the Web 2010", Dzanc Books, April 5, 2010. Retrieved January 3, 2015.
  16. ↑ Dykstra, Katherine (May 6, 2011). "Guernica Essay Lucky Girl Chosen forBest American Essays 2011". Guernica. Retrieved January 3, 2015.
  17. ↑ "The Orwell Prize Long Lists 2011", The Orwell Prize, 2011. Retrieved January 3, 2015. Archived January 3, 2016, at the Wayback Machine .
  18. ↑ "2013 Utne Media Awards: The Winners". Utne Reader. June 3, 2013. Retrieved September 28, 2015.
  19. ↑ "AWP Small Press Publisher Award Winners". Association of Writers & Writing Programs . Retrieved October 14, 2020.
  20. ↑ "2017 PEN America Literary Awards Winners". PEN America. March 27, 2017. Retrieved August 2, 2017.
  21. ↑ "Whiting Literary Magazine Prizes". Whiting Literary Magazine. Retrieved April 8, 2024.
  22. ↑ Binelli, Mark (July 17, 2007). "Intensity of a plot: an interview with Don Delillo". Guernica. Retrieved January 3, 2015.
  23. ↑ "About Guernica". Guernica. Retrieved January 27, 2017.
  24. ↑ Chen, Joanna (March 5, 2024). "From the Edges of a Broken World". Guernica. Archived from the original on March 5, 2024. Retrieved March 18, 2024.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  25. ↑ Sasha Abramsky: The Cringeworthy Hypocrisy of Guernica , The Nation , March 15, 2024
  26. ↑ "Resignations at Guernica magazine after 'genocide apologia' article". Al Jazeera. March 11, 2024.
  27. 1 2 Tracy, Marc (March 12, 2024). "Literary Magazine Retracts Israeli Writer's Essay as Staffers Quit". The New York Times.
  28. 1 2 Jarvie, Jenny (March 12, 2024). "After a writer expressed sympathy for Israelis in an essay, all hell broke loose at a literary journal". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved March 18, 2024.
  29. ↑ Klay, Phil (March 12, 2024). "The Cowardice of Guernica". The Atlantic. Retrieved November 26, 2024.
  30. ↑ Archer, Michael (April 12, 2024). "Moving Forward". Guernica. Retrieved April 15, 2024.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.