Megan Power: Penguin Press

Showing posts with label Penguin Press. Show all posts

"'I believe in symmetry,' he said."

Isola by Allegra Goodman

"Everyone knew what happened next. The police would take their prisoner to a jail cell or a camp lockup, where there was nothing besides a high ceiling, four thick walls, a camera in every corner, an iron door, and a chilly cement floor. If you felt hot you could remove clothes, but if you were cold there was nothing you could do. Even in high summer this was practical problem one had to consider. If someone knocked on my door in the middle of the night, I planned to put on these warm clothes and autumn shoes before answering."

Penguin Press

Posted by Megan Power in Penguin Press

Waiting to Be Arrested at Night: A Uyghur Poet's Memoir of China's Genocide by Tahir Hamut Izgil

"It was a strange thing how people acted as if having a kid was the best thing that could happen to anyone, even though actual parents seemed to experience most of their children's actual childhoods as an annoyance, which they compensated for by bossing them around. People with kids had to go to work every day, at boring, reliable jobs. On the plus side, work was an acceptable way to escape your children, without seeming to want to. The children, having no such escape, lived through long stretches of boredom and powerlessness, punctuated by occasional treats that they overvalued and freaked out over because the rest of their lives were so empty."

Penguin Press