Issue 30: Fever

JULY 8, 2025

Dear readers,

We put together this issue, themed Fever, during what felt like an international heat wave. I, sweltering at my desk in Paris, grew weary of the constant headlines about historic temperatures. “Tell me something I don’t know!” I grumbled to myself as the fan moved hot air from one part of the room to another. But what about a future, I wondered, when a melting planet isn't considered newsworthy anymore?

The stories this month take on various issues that have reached peak intensity. In Mauritius, jellyfish are dying, the seas are boiling; the climate dystopia we fear for the future has already arrived, Ariel Saramandi writes. Isabelle Mayault wanders the emptying halls of the United Nations in Geneva and wonders how long the institution — and internationalism — can survive. In Tuscany, Meara Sharma goes to the Carrara marble quarries, where the water is polluted, the mountains hacked, all in the service of high-end buildings and fancy bathrooms.

In Syria, Lynzy Billing writes about collecting the archive of the disappeared in Syria, and the loss of hope that these personal effects may bring back bodies. We have literature too. My favorite is a science-fictiony Uzbek story by Suhbat Aflatuni — “My Name is Sun” — that was recently featured at the Venice Biennale, translated by Sabrina Jaszi. Finally, a cool break and a rest for the eyes in the form of photos from Barbados, where globalization has not stopped a local tradition: swimming horses.

Stay cool!

Madeleine Schwartz
Editor-in-Chief