Read Me In Print (and Weep)

A hiatus from the hiatus

Is being in print still a momentous event that a writer must celebrate?

Being in print is still a momentous event that a writer must celebrate:

I’m in The Metrograph, Issue 2, along with a bunch of brilliant artists like Elaine May?! Apichatpong Weerasethakul?! Aubrey Plaza?! Christine Smallwood?! I had no clue.

I wrote about the late Senegalese filmmaker and novelist Khady Sylla.

I spoke to two filmmakers in the process of writing this essay: Mariama Sylla, Khady’s sister and frequent collaborator, and Johanna Makabi, a longtime champion of Khady’s work. I also read Khady’s novel Le jeu de la mer, and watched her films Colobane Express (1999), An Open Window (Une fenêtre ouverte) (2005), and A Single Word (Une simple parole) (2014).

I was edited by the wonderful Kelli Weston.

I’m lucky. I loved watching Khady’s incisive, energetic and intensely personal films. I felt as if, in writing about her, I was transmuting a force that came from her, one that tore through the screen. If you’d like to understand a bit of what I’m talking about…

Preorder the Issue Here

Magazines ship in late August, and are on stands worldwide (?!) beginning in September. If you’re in New York City, escape the heat for a while and go to Metrograph.