Dear readers,
Welcome to the first issue of khōréō Volume 6! We hope you’ve had a gentle and invigorating start to the new year, wherever you are.
Since we last wrote one of these letters, the world has changed significantly. Geopolitical horrors abound and fascism is openly flaunted in the halls of power. Closer to home, censorship, slashes to arts funding, and the rising cost of living have made it incredibly difficult for artists and cultural workers to sustain a robust and vibrant literary landscape. And with crackdowns on immigration and hostile enforcement of borders worldwide, we believe it is more important than ever to amplify and celebrate the work of diaspora and immigrant authors and artists.
Last year, we commemorated five years of khōréō—it is a privilege that we have not only survived, but thrived in our short time as a magazine, especially in the current environment. We are grateful to those who continue to give their time and enthusiasm to khōréō, who continue to read, listen to, and support our authors, who continue to trust in our mission and our work.
In these pages, you’ll find queer familial love that transcends spacetime from Phoenix Alexander; tender vignettes of lucid dreaming that cross death and the universe by Megan Chee; and a trio of folkloric stories: a family is cursed amid famine in southwestern Nigeria by jesutomisin ipinmoye; a haunting of crocodiles entwined with colonial violence in Indonesia by Dea Anugrah and Annie Tucker; and a tigress and a sorceress seeking their liberation from the jungle by Lowry Poletti.
Amid the turbulence of today’s world, what is the worth of speculative fiction, and of storytelling? How do we not only react, but also question and deepen our responses to the world around us? There is still wonder to be found in the stories we tell each other—both in the stories themselves, and in the spaces they create for us to meet and know each other, to practice dissent and resist compliance, to offer each other care, understanding, and solidarity.
We hope you love the stories in this issue as much as we do, and we look forward to bringing you the rest of Volume 6 this year.
With love,
Zhui Ning Chang, Kanika Agrawal, Isabella Kestermann, Danai Christopoulou
Editorial Team