The Believer
@thebeliever.net
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A quarterly literature, arts, and culture magazine. https://store.mcsweeneys.net/products/the-believer-subscription-bm4 thebeliever.net
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“There has been no comprehensive effort to memorialize America’s hundreds of former state institutions.” One state school, now a museum by day and haunted attraction by night, attempts to strike a delicate balance between memorialization and spectacle.

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The Haunting of Pennhurst - Believer Magazine
I arrived at Pennhurst on an unusually warm fall day. As I walked across the parking lot, the administration building was the first thing to greet me. An impressive redbrick monument of Jacobean reviv...
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Have you read through all of the fall '25 issue yet? Check out the full offerings here:

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Fall 2025 - Believer Magazine
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"When I write stories, I always ask myself, Could this story have happened to people one or two thousand years ago? I want to put the forces or powers that existed a thousand years ago into stories set in a modern context."

—Chung Seo-kyung

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An Interview with Chung Seo-kyung - Believer Magazine
Chung Seo-kyung may be an unfamiliar name even to those who are deeply familiar with her work, which includes cult-favorite Korean films like Lady Vengeance (2005); I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK (2006);...
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"When we asked people about the Salton Sea, everyone told us the same things: First, the sea was in serious trouble; and second, if we wanted to understand it, we had to meet Irondad."

—from "The Last Resort," an essay by Ash Sanders

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The Last Resort - Believer Magazine
Listen to this story: It is easy to miss California’s biggest environmental disaster. Driving north on Highway 111, you wouldn’t expect to find an inland sea. If it’s summer, the thermometer in your c...
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"On the Calculation of Volume is ultimately about time, in all its guises—time as change and repetition, as history and memory, as materiality and disappearances."

—Meghan Racklin on Book III of Solvej Balle's series

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A Review of On the Calculation of Volume (Book III) - Believer Magazine
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Two days until this exciting event with Daniel Handler and Andrew Sean Greer at the Sydney Goldstein Theater. Get your tickets here: www.cityboxoffice.com/ordertickets...

@cityartssf.bsky.social
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"He spent the next decade collecting textiles, jewelry, and carved wooden trunks that Karakalpak people in hamlets across the region had hidden away... Villagers knew him, affectionately, as 'the junkman.'"

—Michael Snyder on the founder of the Nukus Museum

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Place: The Nukus Museum of Art - Believer Magazine
FEATURES: Ossuary jars Anti-revolutionary painting Toxic dust Solastalgia It was a cold, dry night in April, and a crowd had gathered in the center of Nukus, the capital of the Central Asian Republic ...
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“A man wrote me a letter from prison that included very specific details about my life. / When he told me he was my grandfather, I knew it was impossible, but I still believed him.”

—from “The Letter,” a new poem by Gabrielle Bates

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The Letter - Believer Magazine
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“The vibe is nostalgic, carefree. But where is the water? You turn around and around. On every side of you, dust.”

Ash Sanders visits Bombay Beach, a town on the edge of the Salton Sea, for a postapocalyptic arts festival. Read or listen to the full piece:
www.thebeliever.net/the-last-res...
The Last Resort - Believer Magazine
Listen to this story: It is easy to miss California’s biggest environmental disaster. Driving north on Highway 111, you wouldn’t expect to find an inland sea. If it’s summer, the thermometer in your c...
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thebeliever.net
“With the kidnapped books in hand, my father would make runs to the parking lot to place them in the car trunk, before returning to search for new victims.”

Mona Kareem reflects on her father’s obsessive pursuit of a perfect personal library in Kuwait.

www.thebeliever.net/the-labyrinth/
The Labyrinth - Believer Magazine
When it came to books, my father had absolutely no shame. On his first day at the ten-day Kuwait International Book Fair, he’d pile stacks of books at a publisher’s booth and ask him to keep the books...
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thebeliever.net
Bay Area locals, mark your calendars: Daniel Handler and Andrew Sean Greer are coming to the Sydney Goldstein Theater on October 8 for an evening of conversation not to be missed. Visit the @cityartssf.bsky.social website for more details: www.cityarts.net/event/daniel...
Daniel Handler | City Arts & Lectures
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