What I didn’t expect is that I’d fall in love with the port city itself. Whereas Palermo and Taormina seem to steal the spotlight, Catania boasts some of the island’s best restaurants, opera by puppets and live actors, world-class Greek and Roman antiquities, and, for the adventurous, an active volcano. Though Mt. Etna’s eruptions rarely claim lives, its hardened lava flows are part of the landscape, frequently cut into building stone. When I flew into Catania’s international airport, the snow-capped crater was fuming, not flowing. “You must never speak badly of Etna,” my elderly seatmate confided. “We are all guests on her slopes.” Don’t let a little ash stop you from taking the 9850-foot cablecar ride and guided tour.
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The Primary Substance
Stuck in traffic during a downpour, a driver faces a peculiar dilemma.
Translating Toshiko Hirata's Ars Poetica
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
When I Left “Karl Liebknecht” (an excerpt)
In the Karl Liebknecht House in Leipzig, Germany, thirty people of various nationalities are seated around an improvised table on the stage in the Events Hall, interpreters behind them, some with texts in front of them, some without, and while it looks as if they’re at an ordinary meeting, they are, in fact, at an exceptional one, one that could be called a performance.
Sofa
A sofa, the site of a family’s history, receives and gives a second life.
Pittsburgh's August Wilson African American Cultural Center
LOCATED IN THE HEART of downtown Pittsburgh, on Liberty Avenue close to Union Station and the David Lawrence Convention Center, the sleek and elegant but unpretentious August Wilson African American Cultural Center (awaacc) cannot fail to capture the eye and the imagination of anybody who is visiting Pittsburgh or, for that matter, of anybody who lives in the city.
Liquid History
Scuba-diving in the Black Sea, a writer contemplates Lenin in the Crimean seabed, the watery landfall from which historical figures are never meant to rise again.
Diversifying Bookshelves From Trend to Norm
IN THE WAKE of the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, America woke up to find itself in the midst of a national reckoning over race. Calls for justice and dismantling white supremacy began to touch every aspect of American life—including the literary world.
Catania, Sicily
LAST OCTOBER, I chose to use Catania as a base for exploring the towns of southeastern Sicily I had yet to discover.
There Is Also This Civil War Inside of Me
A Conversation with Zisis Ainalis
Why Iranians Continue to Seek Refuge in Australia
Shokoofeh Azar moved to Australia as a political refugee in 2010. Her novel The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree (see WLT, Spring 2020, 96), originally written in Farsi, was shortlisted for Australia’s 2018 Stella Prize for Fiction and the 2020 International Booker Prize. Here she recalls her refugee journey from Iran to Christmas Island and reveals why Iranians continue migrating to Australia, despite the absence of war.
AN ITALIAN INFLUENCE
Salvatore Vita is a Sicilian influencer attending events, collaborating with brands and taking the Italian Instagram world by storm
Taormina - Magnificent Country That Will Make You Come Back For More
A captivating charm exudes from each corner of this magnificent country, and will surely make you come back for more.