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Kate Zambreno
Kate Zambreno is the author most recently of Drifts (Riverhead) and To Write As If Already Dead, a study of Hervé Guibert (Columbia University Press). Forthcoming in Summer 2023 from Riverhead is The Light Room, a meditation on art and care, as well as Tone, a collaboration with Sofia Samatar, from Columbia University Press in early 2024. ‘Insekt’ is part of an in-progress work of fiction, Realisms. She is a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow.

Articles Available Online


Insekt or large verminous thing

Fiction

September 2022

Kate Zambreno

Fiction

September 2022

Around dusk one evening in March, I went out back to the small garage, and switched on my small square of artificial light at...

Feature

January 2018

Accumulations (Appendix F)

Kate Zambreno

Feature

January 2018

I’ve been keeping a mental list of all the pieces of art that I’ve nursed Leo in front of...

You won’t be able to do it It is a call, and it is something you only know how to do by doing it over and over Birds practise their musical tunes Cows practise their ‘moo’ as they stroll through the fields But persons don’t know how to make a call, and so you will never be able to do it   ‘Oh you’ is sung It starts out a little bit lower and ends a little bit higher like the call for a Bob White bird, only slower You hold on to it longer And like the call of the Bob White bird, you do it over and over and over again The more you do it, the more you have to do it And you have to think of a 1% solution of WC Fields and little bit of bursting at the end ‘Oh you,’ ‘Oh you’   But anyway, you can’t do it You can’t do it because you hardened your voice around some sounds you heard once And now you can’t change it   You thought it would sound good to hold on to the ts at the ends of words with a breathy whistle that is held until the beginning of next word You make that whistle for every single word that ends with a t You like it, and your head jumps a little bit every time you say it You say ‘but’ or ‘but-uh’ a lot so that you can make that t sound a whole bunch more times You put it in everywhere: But-stah-aah But-stah-aah You put it in between words, at the end of sentences, and at moments when other people would have a chance to talk   Or you say ‘Sure, sure, sure’ while other people are talking like you already thought of everything they were saying a thousand years ago Sometimes you say the name of someone and then ‘Sure, Sure, Sure’ Then sometimes you repeat the name several times together with ‘Sure, Sure, Sure’ while holding your finger in the air so that they will stop talking and you can say all of your sentences

Contributor

August 2014

Kate Zambreno

Contributor

August 2014

Kate Zambreno is the author most recently of Drifts (Riverhead) and To Write As If Already Dead, a study...

Heroines

feature

March 2013

Kate Zambreno

feature

March 2013

I am beginning to realise that taking the self out of our essays is a form of repression. Taking the self out feels like...

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Interview

July 2012

Interview with David Harvey

Matt Mahon

Interview

July 2012

David Harvey is rare among Left academics: his work is as much appreciated by anarchists and the Occupy movement...

poetry

Issue No. 18

Two New Poems

Dorothea Lasky

poetry

Issue No. 18

Do You Want To Dip The Rat   Do you want to dip the rat Completely in oil  ...

fiction

April 2013

The Taxidermist

Olivia Heal

fiction

April 2013

I did not want to walk. The day was dull. But imperative or impulsion pushed me out, onto the...

 

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