Where I Go: Afropalonia

Writer and Poet Rashaad Thomas Imagines 'a Planet Only for Black People'

eath sits next to me, hip bones touching mine on a twin bed in the center of a revolving room in Arizona that’s progressively increasing in speed. Frequency numbers, lifeless Black bodies, and protest signs spread across the ceiling, mixing with red, white, and blue pills and two inches of 40-ounce malt liquor poured out on the floor for my dead homies.

White, black, brown, and red wires and transparent tubes stretch from the middle of my sternum to a heart monitor and oxygen tank implanted in my spine.

The walls’ eyes …

A Fictional Calexit Scenario Offers a Real Warning | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

A Fictional Calexit Scenario Offers a Real Warning

Conservative Writer David French Argues That if Americans Can't Live by Pluralism, the Country Could Split Apart

It was gun violence that finally drove California to secede from the United States.

A series of mass shootings culminated in a savage, Columbine-style attack on a Sacramento-area school that killed …

In Venezuela, Dystopian Fiction Hits Close to Home | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

In Venezuela, Dystopian Fiction Hits Close to Home

J.G. Ballard’s High-Rise Shows What Happens When a Liberal Democracy Crumbles and Its Worst Vices Take Over

There’s a certain absurdity that comes with trying to explain—in calm, simple, and objective words—a life that has become too strange to be real. At least, that’s how I feel …

The Fictional Maps That Fill Us With Wonder

From Kerouac to Brontë, Writers Have Imagined Intricate Geographies

“Maps are like good books,” writes historian of exploration Huw Lewis-Jones. They “are transporting: filled with wonder, possibility, adventure. … They allow us to escape to another place whenever we …