WHEN, JUST over a month ago, Thomas Bernhard’s last play, Immanuel Kant, premiered in Stuttgart—a play in which the philosopher from Königsberg, accompanied by a servant, a parrot, and his wife, undertakes a long, long sea voyage to New York—most Ger

In the hospice where you died, a lot of money was spent to make the place conform to someone’s algorithm of home—shag carpeted lobby, wood paneled elevator, particle board furniture with shrink wrap thin mahogany veneer, faux marble linoleum tiles. T

I don’t remember who chose the shabby tavern on Polk Street three blocks north of Market, only that we landed there afternoons after another tedious law school class, lounging at its lacquered mahogany bar near the square, filthy, street-facing plate

He wags his flat broad tongue at trilling birds.He halloos them and smiles through ten teeth.He swings a big square mirror from his neck.He holds it up and licks the image there. An eagle pinions a terrified upended fox. A tiger’s mouth opens like a

A FEW YEARS ago, reviewing a show in London of Cézanne’s paintings of cardplayers, I began by saying, “Cézanne, whose work was the touchstone for critical thinking and writing on art for more than a century, cannot be written about any more.” And wen

Skye Anicca’s short fiction has appeared in Fairy Tale Review, Nimrod International Journal, Santa Monica Review, Passages North, and elsewhere. The poem in this issue is her first to be published in print. Elvis Bego was born in Bosnia and at prese

After living in this village for two months, painting the same landscape, surviving on bread and staples, I missed the city. I used to want silence until it began to cripple me so much so I conceived the idea I existed in a painting. Even when the we

Editor and Publisher: Wendy Lesser Associate Editors: Sabrina Ramos Rose Whitmore Art Advisors: Allie Haeusslein Sandra Phillips Proofreader: Zachary Greenwald Geoff Dyer Deborah Eisenberg Jonathan Franzen Louise Glück Janet Malcolm Ian McEwan Rob

The Threepenny Review is supported by Hunter College, the Bernard Osher Foundation, the Campizondo Foundation, and the George Lichter Family Fund. Our writer payments are underwritten by our Writers’ Circle, which includes Robert Bauer, Richard V. Cl

AT SIXTEEN, the price of a dream can be very high, as we would often learn that summer when the Rajdhani Express first thundered past our bedroom windows. Its maiden run from Howrah to Delhi had reverberated through our town. The few coins we had ear

Black River Falls, where the photographs in this issue were taken, is a small city in the central plains of Wisconsin. Alessandra Sanguinetti has been visiting there since 2014 to document a culture outside the ken of most Americans. Sanguinetti’s ph

1 You agree with Adam Zagajewski, who has described The Threepenny Review as “one of the most original literary magazines not only in the U.S. but also on the entire planet.” 2 You’re in possession of singularly valuable information: only you can ju

The fifteen photos in this issue were all taken by Alessandra Sanguinetti and are copyrighted in the name of the artist. Pier 24 Photography kindly provided us with the scans, which come from Sanguinetti’s Black River Falls series. Below are captions

She gives him weak, he gives her his beak, a nuzzle and peck at the nape of her neck. When he gives her a sign, she gives him supine. They don’t do fiction or even prediction. He gives her grief, she gives him relief and whatever’s still sane to avoi

It was late, by then the horses were sleeping, standing up, the dark of the forest reflecting in their eyes.The tablecloth was still on the table, the breadcrumbs, the food getting cold.Those who were pregnant had already given birth, were out pushin

I hate it when their dads die their moms too but dad always dies more so, I relate trying to sit through class with your bones not there to support you you dissolve into the desk try to disappear just tell me your alarm did not wake you pull yourself

We are pleased to announce that back issues of The Threepenny Review are available online through JSTOR, the not-for-profit digital archive. Researchers may search, browse, download, and print the full-text PDF versions from the journal’s first year

When David asks, “Where does the saying ‘She still has her marbles’ come from?” I’d been talking about my ma, who’s 94, same as David, though David said, “I’m 94 and four months, so she’s still a child.” I say, “It’s got to come from being a kid, wou

Not a flotation device. More like a mirror wherein objects may appear closer than—Lately I’ve been penning my obituary (haven’t we all?) I crave the and then of it and left behind. Of course, survived by There is always presence wherein objects may b

...woman is her body as man is his, but her body is something other than her. —Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex THAT SPRING I walked into the hospital for a minor procedure and walked out with a handful of balloons into the strangest six weeks of