And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars

In this rich eye-opening and uplifting anthology dozens of esteemed writers poets artists and translators from more than thirty countries offer a profound kaleidoscopic portrait of lives transformed by the coronavirus pandemic.As COVID-19 has become the defining global experience of our time writers offer a powerful antidote to the fearful confines of isolation: a window onto corners of the world beyond our own. And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again takes its title from the last line of Dante's Inferno when the poet and his guide emerge from hell to once again behold the beauty of the heavens. In that spirit the stories essays poems and artwork in this collection detail the harrowing realities of the pandemic while pointing toward a more connected future. Review A genre- and border-crossing anthology of mostly translated reactions to the coronavirus [that] juxtaposes styles?poetry next to literary criticism experimental fiction next to personal essay?in a way that is consistently disorienting and sometimes jarring but pleasantly so . . . Uncertainty is a driving theme inAnd We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again. So is brokenness: broken bodies hearts medical systems immigration systems and more . . . [French Tunisian writer Hubert Haddad's] story is a collage of fictional 'false starts drafts approximations [and] broken-off openings' that describe and evoke the 'hazy driftlessness' of quarantined life. Its choppy static structure captures the dysfunction of pandemic time. -- Lily Meyer ―The AtlanticMexican American writer and educator Stavans has gleaned powerful responses to the pandemic from 52 contributors who share their experiences in deftly crafted essays poems photographs and artwork.... The impressive cast of contributors?Jhumpa Lahiri Mario Vargas Llosa Claire Messud Ariel Dorfman Rivka Galchen Daniel Alarcón and others?reveal feelings of fear loneliness and for some a surprising sense of connection . . . Although many look optimistically to the future for others the pandemic has laid bare a long plague of inequality and hatreds. Stirring reflections to illuminate dark times. ―Kirkus ReviewsFear dread hope empathy - writers across the globe chronicle their thoughts on the raging coronavirus. -- The Hindu About the Author Jhumpa Lahiri is the author of four works of fiction: Interpreter of Maladies The Namesake Unaccustomed Earth and most recently The Lowland. A recipient of the Pulitzer Prize a PEN/Hemingway Award the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2012.