#oswald-huynh

#oswald-huynh

Pho Ngoon's version of bún chả bursts with the aroma of lemongrass and includes fatty cuts of pork, served with a dipping sauce that is equal parts sweet, tangy, and briny.

A vision lay before him: Fleet Street blanketed with snow, silent, empty, pure white, and, at the end of it, the huge and majestic form of Saint Paul's Cathedral. It was a spellbinding moment: the great thoroughfare temporarily devoid of carts and carriages, the cathedral looming blurrily out of the still-falling snowflakes a real-life snow globe.

No single musician better represents that contribution and its nearly forgotten history than pianist Sidney Porter. From 1941 until his untimely death in 1970, he cast a 6'8" shadow over Portland's jazz scene as both a performer and nightclub owner. Two months after he died, more than 3,000 people filled the Hoyt Hotel in a 10-hour show of respect that included 20 bands and more than 160 musicians.

Yiyun Li reads her story 'Calm Sea and Hard Faring,' from the March 9, 2026, issue of the magazine. Li is the author of eight books of fiction, including the novels 'Must I Go' and 'The Book of Goose,' and the story collection 'Wednesday's Child,' which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2024.

My late 30s were hard. Living alone in Cape Town, South Africa, I was holding out for a partner and children while my friends moved through weddings and baby showers without me. My parents and sisters (including my twin) lived in another province, freelance writing work was drying up, and as 40 approached, I felt stuck - single, lonely, and unsure what came next.

For Lowell There are things which, said and true, are of this generation's past; of fighting freedom's battles and of taking off the mask- stories of the actions taken, to blot out the blights of sin, how heroes and the valorous fought their enemies within, Would we be traitors to our bugle, which beckons with its call? - They won freedom for their people but in fine print said: be damned.

A sprawling tale of two Singapores, the short documentary Sandcastles draws connections between Singapore, Michigan - a 19th-century ghost town swallowed by sand following widespread deforestation - and the island country of Singapore, where rapid development and land reclamation has, for decades, been enabled by the importation of sand. More poetic exploration than call to action, the work surveys waterways, cycles of development and the transient nature of sand - deceptively sturdy over short timescales but, over decades, quite volatile.

Because, let's face it, creative work does require some form of faith. It is a tumultuous thing to launch an idea into a vast nothingness and hope that it makes a light bright enough to be found by others. Luckily, these luminaries were my light, and I hope they may become yours as well, and - more so - that these snippets lead you to more of their work.

Yes, because I grew up under Mao's rule and fear was ingrained in our hearts. Today I try to overcome it, not feel it and move on with my life, but it's still there.

Out of the many hundreds of titles that our organization carefully considered this year, these singular and striking finalists rose to the top, NBCC President Adam Dalva said in a statement Tuesday. They interrogate the lives we lead, broaden our creative and social horizons, move us, and continually surprise us. Especially in this difficult time, every one of these writers and translators deserves to be celebrated - and to be widely read.