"A Meteor of Intelligent Substance""Something was Missing in our Culture, and Here It Is""Liberties is THE place to be. Change starts in the mind." Liberties, a journal of Culture and Politics, is essential reading for those engaged in the cultural and political issues and causes of our time. Liberties features serious, independent, stylish, and controversial essays by significant writers and leaders throughout the world; new poetry; and, introduces the next generation of writers and voices to inspire and impact the intellectual and creative lifeblood of today's culture and politics. This issue of Liberties includes: new work from Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa; drawings by Leonard Cohen published for the first time; Mamtimin Ala's essay on China's genocide of the Uyghurs; Jaroslaw Anders' analysis of the crisis in Belarus; Cass R. Sunstein on liberalism inebriated; Richard Thompson Ford on what slavery does and does not explain; Sean Wilentz on the historical strategy of the Republican Party; Benjamin Moser writes about translation as a form of tourism in literary life; Jonathan Zimmerman on the scandal of college teaching; Mark Lilla on cults of innocence and their victims; Helen Vendler on Adrienne Rich; Holly Brewer on race and enlightenment; David Thomson asks, What shall we watch now?; Celeste Marcus (managing editor) on the legend of Alice Neel; Leon Wieseltier (editor) on Zionism's beautiful stubbornness of survival; and new poetry from Ange Mlinko and Shaul Tchernikhovsky, translated by Robert Alter.

Twentieth-century Polish literature is often said to be a "witness to history," a narrative of the historical and political disasters that visited the nation. In this insightful book, Jaroslaw Anders examines Poland's modern poetry and fiction and explains that the best Polish writing of the period 1918-1989 was much more than testimony. Rather, it constantly transformed historical experience into metaphysical reflection, a philosophical or religious exploration of human existence. Anders analyzes and contextualizes the work of nine modern Polish writers. These include the "three madmen" of the interwar period-Schulz, Gombrowicz, and Witkiewicz, whom he calls the fathers of Polish modernist prose; the great poets of the war generation-Milosz, Herbert, and Szymborska; Herling-Grudzinski and Konwicki, with their dark philosophical subtexts; and the mystical-ecstatic poet Zagajewski. A collection of essays representing Anders's thinking over several decades, Between Fire and Sleep offers a fresh understanding of modern Polish literature and cultural identity.

Marek Hlasko's literary autobiography is a vivid, first-hand account of the life of a young writer in 1950s Poland and a fascinating portrait of the ultimately short-lived rebel generation. Told in a voice suffused with grit and morbid humor, Hlasko's memoir was a classic of its time. In it he recounts his adventures and misadventures, moving swiftly from one tale to the next. Like many writers of his time, Hlasko also worked in screen writing, and his memoir provides a glimpse into just how markedly the medium of film affected him from his very earliest writing days. The memoir details his relationships with such giants of Polish culture as the filmmaker Roman Polanski and the novelist Jerzy Andrzejewski. Hlasko is the most prominent example of a writer who broke free from the Socialist-Realist formulae that dominated the literary scene in Poland since it fell under the influence of the Soviets. He made his literary debut in 1956 and immediately became a poster boy for Polish Literature. He subsequently worked at some of the most important newspapers and magazines for intellectual life in Warsaw. Hlasko was sent to Paris on an official mission in 1958, but when he published in an \u00e9migr\u00e9 Parisian press his novel of life in post-War Poland, he was denied a renewal of his passport. In effect, he was called back to Poland, and when he refused to return he was stripped of his Polish citizenship. He spent the rest of his life working in exile. Marek Hlasko was a rebel whose writing and iconoclastic way of life became an inspiration to those of his generation and after. Here, in the first English translation of his literary memoir, Ross Ufberg deftly renders Hlasko's wry and passionate voice.