Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    A Brief Alphabet of Torture: Stories
    A Brief Alphabet of Torture: Stories
    A Brief Alphabet of Torture: Stories
    Ebook121 pages2 hours

    A Brief Alphabet of Torture: Stories

    By Vi Khi Nao

    3.5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Winner of FC2’s Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize

    An unflinching and riveting meditation on the pain that attends every facet of existence—love and sacrifice and intimacy and beauty—a biography of torture.

    Like all of Vi Khi Nao’s acclaimed and award-winning work, A Brief Alphabet of Torture bleeds across many modes and genres—poetry, essay, fiction, drama—and itself almost constitutes a novel of a different kind. Each tale captures the emotional, physical, psychological, political, and artistic concerns that pervade life like breath and which, even when very beautiful, are filled with pain.
     
    These stories are all facets of Nao’s imagination that define the way she views creation, sexuality, violence, and the role of life in an ontological system that relies heavily on cultural, social, and artistic duress. Some stories like “Winter Rose” and “I Love You Me Neither” rise above the boundaries of pain to places of beauty and grace and love, where pain has no place, but make clear how rare such moments appear in life.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity of Alabama Press
    Release dateSep 19, 2017
    ISBN9781573668729
    A Brief Alphabet of Torture: Stories
    Author

    Vi Khi Nao

    Vi Khi Nao was born in Long Khánh, Vietnam. Vi’s work includes poetry, fiction, film and cross-genre collaboration. Her poetry collection, The Old Philosopher, was the winner of 2014 Nightboat Poetry Prize. Her novel, Fish In Exile, will make its first appearance in Fall 2016 from Coffee House Press. She holds an MFA in fiction from Brown University.

    Read more from Vi Khi Nao

    Related to A Brief Alphabet of Torture

    Related ebooks

    General Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      On Louise Glück

      Dec 1, 2021

      I WAS LYING in bed late at night, woeful, confused by another death, this one the death of a close friend; the losses had been mounting steadily, a bewildering number of losses, each one specific, difficult to accept, hard to overcome, and I must hav

      12 min read

    • Article

      The Prophet of Nothingness

      Sep 12, 2021

      The Prophet of Nothingness
      9 min read

    • Article

      Clarice Lispector’s Children’s Story Taught Me to Read Her Like An Adult

      Mar 17, 2017

      Filmmaker Pedro Almodovar was asked to write an introduction to the translated edition of Clarice Lispector’s final novel Breath of Life. Instead of a formal introduction, his refusal letter was published and said this of Lispector’s work: “Each phra

      7 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Nov 1, 2018

      Moon river, swollen river, river of starholeand bright, harness river, lichen river,river we velvet with our filth.River of butter and river of witches, rivercracked open careful like egg, or burstapart, unleashing its violet load.River mouths, river

      2 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Zoë Ruiz

      Dec 9, 2017

      I’m currently reading Aisha Sabatini Sloan’s essay collection Dreaming of Ramadi in Detroit, which was chosen by Maggie Nelson as the winner of the 1913 Open Prose Contest. I’ve been an admirer of Sloan’s essays since her first collection, The Fluenc

      2 min read

    • Article

      Ocean Vuong

      Mar 9, 2021

      Scraped the last $8.48from the glass jar.Your day’s worth of tips at the nail salon. Enoughfor one hit. Enoughto be good till noon butthese hands alreadyblurring. The money a weird hummingbird caughtin my fingers. I take outthe carton of eggs. Crack

      1 min read

    • Article

      Elif Batuman on Fictionalizing Her Life, and Learning to Fact Check

      Mar 21, 2017

      In 2015, the New Yorker writer Elif Batuman was given a book contract to write an autobiographical novel about a Turkish-American journalist moving to Turkey to write for a New Yorker-like publication. Batuman herself had spent several years there wr

      7 min read

    • Article

      Gentle Or Not

      Nov 1, 2022

      After we leave New York, I read a book about how to notlet the internet destroy my brain. I thinkthe answer is to have been raised in California, to be a completely different person. At homepeople clap every night for healthcare workers.They clap lik

      2 min read

    • Article

      Toward A Unified Theory

      Jan 1, 2022

      Condemned to live inside the weatherof our moods What are you doing? Filling this bucket with waterand dumping it into the water They can’t excavate the amphitheater further because it extends backbeneath the houses We close their eyes not for thembu

      2 min read

    • Article

      Three Poems by Sheri Benning

      Mar 9, 2021

      the baby, name lost. 1906. Spring born,almond and blackthorn in bloom. Meadowsweet,chickweed, petals of milk on her lips. Spider-silk saliva from mouth to crab apple fists,on Mother’s lap, the train from Kiev to Minskafter the last harvest in Tiegeno

      2 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for A Brief Alphabet of Torture

    3.5/5

    2 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      A Brief Alphabet of Torture - Vi Khi Nao

      X2^book_preview_excerpt.htmlYˎˑ\2@uqmAպ$Mu ËdUbUe93)?x6yw6YUd-H+2ĉooB^ӛ58ߪ͹zsMzsٚ&Lgq~9Ol_\vYD?gOTѪ_V]iO-T;ネj\깮Mô6dt.0߽zWOyTrjPXngϔ JVua;~Z,6bƻlT[]w6kW*-s57J97)':RMD}lt\GjI8 HM&"9&Ο`5eiF8j QSׅ3=[.\n+lЙ9Q?`]|7jaѢ-ˍ٪vKxYtkzk}ˠlօ `3=ޘWz)o7Y3ևtM>RU&*mJv0~\8_WW#5qsxf[ ]W/7#ujf4pcYˑ#+-4fԼl s [Jtc[? z~商'̝QG#Ȁbñ6Xyzy19O >a?Y'jX_33Kڅ+a'O3HwF>yzd=G+嫧߿|œG-bF,Nxk< s>Ξxs5~X5Ƽ^=}~|<{| s>WN[dq Gf 'eGˎxoHUos2xo\8;PjS5E~a ;&d$iu뽙S9('QW"IaFj0 Lz}fl5l6Vg-&;ujL>lոle"%0ڿ*9`|igk žaror>ۅCεW:Oa'a,gr.lD KoQځSC=7kރ|G!G?{\װd컎|fL D|nډkMl?ga%?9>#]Ø"u !ς}w:f'icO'̻pu}1C\\Ϧ`\~Bh7oj X:ReW 7bVV J:f1_K2*׋#[mT9cn֦,^`KWSUtm):|9XjKZHmyTKr^HaTG@ft&4w> ThbSADhY{zAp^: #x:DJl)I[E?Ķ^?ôRסGعctܭk X5ݔ,I k jS51j]N\eJvQedEn*Gt76GM2pcXG>U%Nv[a/6ֆ,yB>'b0GxYCi.h`L^)Hmo(0%sD`l;e@9O|sQu =z #" ]^aN'=xk)Yp{e =JG'@](aRa!I˟nRq UÉ46 2< Ci #tsGJ/0v6'!44)[/XϝLE`(yh .h Qz[S6~ /R{$fW`^m-:!4D#Q"&)V PpPN6l̶7l7VBUZ%RHqm:ۥQOt˲AV/l)JWžAF GZwAúQҡYaKM<+5LFJ( GbZ}Gdu-pَoӚkmEiǽJφO7FH^4zd̑]&R )e]BNVoH(8@gtsbnCG΍-E 7]K:g ^ڡ_3KGVn]V%^!%&0"Pt2$ߊl/6(GB6R;KޛV >9MVڡSq(y 6G8$HٹYAI6p5YY J׈I;v㱇JɊo^v= Cm_R\?Hw&S?I8=.{F}_aAN]-two(퉺]=k푽vE^BOQBk# ;^Vɐ ޙ=(31P5;[2B,c+w؍ݓ1m?,wZ4uSj4w]/=Q!
      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1