New England Review

After the April 2026 defeat of Victor Orbán, Hungary’s long-term prime minister and leader of Fidesz, NER international correspondent Ellen Hinsey spoke to constitutional scholar Gábor Attila Tóth about the progress of democracy in Hungary after its undoing by Orbán’s illiberal regime.

New England Review is thrilled to announce that Christina Wood has joined our staff today, August 31, as managing editor! Christina comes to NER with extensive editing and publishing experience, most recently at The Georgia Review and Brink Books. She has published her short stories in The Paris Review, Granta, McSweeney’s, Virginia Quarterly Review, and others, and her nonfiction has appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books and McNeese Review.

“Through an accumulation of voids, I encountered a series of images that filled me with urgency and discomfort: a mail carrier’s bag; a friendless child bound to a tree; a sign reading I Am Here Alone.” I don’t know what I want. I don’t know what I want to eat, to watch, to read, and certainly to write. But I always know what I don’t want. At restaurants, I typically spend my first minute disqualifying items from the menu (I’m talking to you, miso-glazed salmon, and you, pumpkin gnocchi).

Editorial intern Aren Lau ’27 talks with former NER intern Leah Sarbib about practicality and passion, collaborative writing spaces, & taking creative inspiration from J-term classes. Aren Lau: Where do you find yourself now, geographically and professionally? Leah Sarbib: I’m in New York City, writing on the first season of a new Netflix show. AL: How did you successfully avoid the college-to-corporate pipeline and stay true to your creative, artistic endeavors?

Leslie Bazzett, Mia (Scribner) — published most recently in NER 40.2 “Bazzett’s debut is a beautifully written novel of love, loss, and longing. Peppered with vivid descriptions of small-town Mexico, Bazzett’s prose is at once gorgeous and harsh, and her characters jump off the page”—Booklist, starred review Daniela Catrileo translated by Jacob Edelstein, Piñen (FSG Originals) — Catrileo appeared in NER 43.4 “Striking . . .

Staff reader Zara Karschay speaks with NER 47.2 writer Olaniyi Omiwale about the social currency of writers, creating characters with consciousness, and finding the “unguarded truth” within the parenthetical. Zara Karschay: Let’s start with place.

Staff reader Nico Amador speaks with NER 47.2 contributor Jenny Johnson about the nuances of writing into eros and the prose poem as a form for sensory immersion. Nico Amador: The most recent issue of NER features a suite of three poems, all short prose pieces that gesture at kink and other consensual forms of erotic play—a subject that shows up in your other recent poems and personal essays.

“Memory is the seamstress, and a capricious one at that. Memory runs her needle in and out, up and down, hither and thither . . . The most ordinary movement in the world . . . may agitate a thousand odd, disconnected fragments, now bright, now dim.” —Virginia Woolf, Orlando: A Biography The first album I ever bought was Ace of Base’s The Sign. While I have trouble recalling what I did last week, the second I hear the relentless reggae beat of “All That She Wants,” I am propelled back in time.

Staff reader Thomas Nath speaks over the phone with NER 47.2 contributor Leath Tonino about constellations, gossip ladders, and why you should write down quotes when you read. Thomas Nath: I’d be curious to know where the germ of the idea for this piece began. Did it start with a desire to interrogate certain themes, or from playing around with the form of using other quotes, or were there readings you collected that seemed to speak to each other? Leath Tonino: Two things to mention.

Mariana Salomão Carrara translated by Alison Entrekin & Julia Sanches, The Lonliest Tree in the World (Catapult) — translator Entrekin appeared in NER 46.1 & translator Sanches in 47.2 “A tender, keenly observed portrait of life and loss on a tobacco farm in rural Brazil.