Spring 2014

Jason Motlagh on the worst accident in the history of the garment industry, plus Atish Saha’s photographs of a Bangladesh factory disaster Leslie Jamison on female pain Lawrence Weschler on how artist Fred Tomaselli finds visual poetry in the news Carlene Bauer on the intersection of faith and fiction Gina LeVay on female matadors Fiction by Elizabeth Eshelman, Elizabeth McCracken, and Thomas Pierce Poetry by Rita Dove, Celia Dropkin, Kip Knott, Paul Legault, Amit Majmudar, and Joseph Voth
Spring 2014

Volume 90, Number 2

Virginia Quarterly Review, Spring 2014 cover
Print: $14.00
Digital download: $14.00

Table of contents

Reporting 
REPORTING / ISSUE: Spring 2014

The Ghosts of Rana Plaza

By Jason Motlagh
REPORTING / ISSUE: Spring 2014

The True Cost of Cheap Clothing

REPORTING / ISSUE: Spring 2014

White Gold

By Gerard Helferich ,  Photography by John Montfort Jones
Essays 
ESSAYS / ISSUE: Spring 2014

Waiting for Exile

By Julia Cooke
ESSAYS / ISSUE: Spring 2014

Grand Unified Theory of Female Pain

By Leslie Jamison
ESSAYS / ISSUE: Spring 2014

Fully Loaded: The Poetry of Celia Dropkin

By Edward Hirsch
ESSAYS / ISSUE: Spring 2014

Tomaselli’s Times

By Lawrence Weschler
ESSAYS / ISSUE: Spring 2014

A Difficult Balance

By Carlene Bauer
Criticism 
CRITICISM / ISSUE: Spring 2014

New America and Old China in Dystopian Novels

By Jiayang Fan
CRITICISM / ISSUE: Spring 2014

The Loudly Ticking Clock

By Elliott Holt
CRITICISM / ISSUE: Spring 2014

Truths, Slightly Arranged: John Updike’s Uninhibited Fiction

By John Freeman
CRITICISM / ISSUE: Spring 2014

Starting Over

By Michael Croley
CRITICISM / ISSUE: Spring 2014

Sister Cities: Louis Armstrong’s New Orleans and Stax Records’ Memphis

By Preston Lauterbach
Photography 
PHOTOGRAPHY / ISSUE: Spring 2014

Rana Plaza: Four Days in April

Photography by Atish Saha
PHOTOGRAPHY / ISSUE: Spring 2014

Female Matadors

Photography by Gina LeVay ,  Essay by Allison Wright
Fiction 
FICTION / ISSUE: Spring 2014

Felix Not Arriving

By Thomas Pierce ,  Illustration by Debra Riffe
FICTION / ISSUE: Spring 2014

When the Aged Are Reverently, Passionately Waiting

By Elizabeth Eshelman ,  Illustration by Debra Riffe
FICTION / ISSUE: Spring 2014

Peter Elroy: A Documentary by Ian Casey

By Elizabeth McCracken ,  Illustration by Debra Riffe
Poetry 
POETRY / ISSUE: Spring 2014

Ode to My Right Knee

By Rita Dove
POETRY / ISSUE: Spring 2014

Lineage

By Amit Majmudar
POETRY / ISSUE: Spring 2014

New York, I Loved You

By Joseph Voth
POETRY / ISSUE: Spring 2014

Doldrums

By Kip Knott
POETRY / ISSUE: Spring 2014

Fractal Elegy

By Kip Knott
POETRY / ISSUE: Spring 2014

Pistachio Tree at Chateau Noir

By Paul Legault
POETRY / ISSUE: Spring 2014

Personal Poem

By Paul Legault
Fine Distinctions 
FINE DISTINCTIONS / ISSUE: Spring 2014

Of Calamities, Catastrophes, and Disasters

By Gregory McNamee
Mapping 
MAPPING / ISSUE: Spring 2014

A Short History of Cars in Cuba

By Reif Larsen
Talisman 
TALISMAN / ISSUE: Spring 2014

Reading Between the Lines

By Bobbie Ann Mason
Editor's Desk 
EDITOR'S DESK / ISSUE: Spring 2014

History’s Echo

By W. Ralph Eubanks
Amateur Hour 
AMATEUR HOUR / ISSUE: Spring 2014

Looper

By Jack Hitt

Contributor Profiles

Lawrence Weschler

Lawrence Weschler, a contributing editor to VQR, is the former director of the New York Institute for the Humanities and artistic director emeritus of the Chicago Humanities Festival.

Leslie Jamison

Leslie Jamison, a VQR editor at large, is the author of the nonfiction books The Recovering (Little, Brown, 2018), The Empathy Exams (Graywolf, 2014), and most recently the essay collection Make It Scream, Make It B
Rita Dove

Rita Dove is a former US Poet Laureate (1993–1995) and recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for her book Thomas and Beulah (Carnegie Mellon, 1986).

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