The Blog

Where can you find state-fair ennui, unicorn horns, $3.99 wine, The Inferno, Guatemalan place names, picadilly relish, awkward class reunions, the only Honda Civic at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, and "the small days of living"?

The latest Iowa Review!

Come get a first glimpse of our Fall 2011 issue—to be unveiled that night—and hear authors read a sampling of their work and editors share inside stories from behind the slush pile.

All the details:

August 25, 2011
7:00 p.m.
Prairie Lights Bookstore
Featured readers: Eduardo Halfon (fiction), Kim Lozano (poetry), and Jenny Zhang (fiction)

Of all the attributes that set Latin America apart from its northern neighbors, perhaps none captivates quite like the regional tendency to put community before the individual. Few visitors to Latin America fail to observe the way the lives of so many Latin Americans interweave, and the way that interweaving expresses itself socially. If you’ve ever shared an afternoon meal in a Latin American home or enjoyed a dinner out until five in the morning, you’ve witnessed the way Latin Americans appreciate one another’s company. This spirit of camaraderie suffuses all levels of society, expressing itself in social customs, economics, and politics. It’s fair to wonder: is the communal spirit that keeps an Epiphany celebration going all night long the same that makes the region so resistant to globalization?