Grand Street #70: Against Nature

In "Grand Street #70: Against Nature", the pastoral meets the perverse. Jean-Jacques Schuhl describes chanteuse Ingrid Caven's debut as the voice of porn star Linda Lovelace. Abdourahman A. Waberi explores the French colonialist legacy in Djibouti and the midst of a future terrorist. Pedro Lemebel recounts the last definant act of a dying transvestite. Stephen Trombley's first-hand account of the execution of a friend accompanies Lucinda Devlin's stark photographs of death chambers. Victor Pelevin explains Pepsi's influence on Russia's first post-Glasnost generation, and Durs Grunbein and Via Lewandowsky catalogue six bizarre accidental deaths. Other highlights include short stories by emerging writers Terezia Mora and Shelley Jackson, a dialogue between Professor of Comparative Literature and music critic Edward Said and pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim, and poetry by Mahmoud Darwish, Volker Braun, and Sharon Olds. Also featuring Cornelia Hesse-Honegger's meticulously detailed paintings of mutated insects collected in the vicinity of nuclear power plants, photographs by Kiki Smith, and fog sculptures by Fujiko Nakaya. Essays by Daniel Barenboim, Durs Grunbein, Edward Said, Stephen Trombley. Fiction by Shelley Jackson, Pedro Lemebel, Terezia Mora, Victor Pelevin, Jean-Jacques Schuhl, Abdourahman A. Waberi. 8.25 x 9.5 in. 40 color, 25 b/w illustrations