Guernica July Issue: Visibility, Loss, and the Question of Disappearance

The July issue of *Guernica Magazine* explores the urgent question of whether societies only recognize value in what is at risk of disappearing. The theme is examined through photography, nonfiction, fiction, interviews, translations, and poetry, challenging readers to consider the ethics of visibility and the complexities of attention before loss.

A central feature is the photo essay by Ben Buckland and Carissa Western, which documents Sebeïba, a centuries-old Saharan festival central to the cultural life of the Imuhar people. The essay examines the ethical dilemmas of visibility, tourism, and state involvement in preserving traditions that face decline. It questions whether such engagements can ever remain neutral when encountering threatened worlds.

In nonfiction, Mahreen Sohail’s *The Death Years* reflects on motherhood and mortality, weaving together family history, inherited grief, and the fears of loving a child. The piece examines the tension between remembering the dead and learning to live with their absence.

Fiction in the issue includes Herbert Girtley’s *Bojack Blues*, a narrative about friendship, pain, and music that unfolds into a poignant portrait of male camaraderie. The story captures a moment of vulnerability between two men by a creek, where shared sorrow gives way to a deeper, almost sublime connection. Also featured is an excerpt from Andra Otilia Nicolescu’s unpublished novel *Midnight in Exile*, which follows Paul and Ana as they navigate late-life migration to America. Set in the aftermath of the 1989 fall of state socialism in Eastern Europe, the story explores themes of displacement, marriage, and the slow revelations that come with aging and upheaval.

The issue includes an interview with poet and activist Kathy Engel, conducted by Tyler Barton. Engel discusses her lifelong engagement with social justice movements, from Palestine to Nicaragua, and her belief in the inseparability of art and political struggle. The conversation traces her experiences, including the 1982 barring of poet Mahmoud Darwish from a New York event amid Israel’s invasion of Lebanon and the Sabra and Shatila massacres.

Global Spotlights presents *Go for It*, a translation from Japanese by Sharni Wilson. Masami Kakinuma’s story centers on an elderly woman in rural Iwate, blending folklore with the quiet regrets of adulthood. It reimagines fortune as something attainable through the courage to pursue the life one truly desires.

The poetry section includes Michelle Matthees’s *Svetlana at the Dacha, 1938* and *Joseph*, which reflect on childhood innocence amid Stalinist repression, asking how personal wounds become historical violence. Denoo Edinam Yawo’s *The Anatomy of a Bullet Alchemising into Death* explores inherited trauma, with violence passed down through generations as a language of displacement and grief. Anna T. Szabó’s *Her Five Children and Noose*, translated from Hungarian by Ági Bori, examines the collapse of domestic stability and the lingering traces of care when systems fail.

In a conversation with the editor, Engel quotes Bayo Akomolafe: “The times are urgent—we must slow down.” This sentiment encapsulates the issue’s call to pause, to attend more deeply to those on the brink of erasure, and to recognize the enduring presence of the past in the present.

The July issue features original artwork by Ben Buckland, Melissa Monroe, and Andra Otilia Nicolescu. Raaza Jamshed serves as editor-in-chief.