Overview

In beautifully written and powerfully thought prose, A World Out of Reach offers a crucial record of the cataclysmic spring of 2020—a record for us to share with one another, and for posterity, in the voices of writers of disparate backgrounds.   When the coronavirus outbreak came to the West, The Yale Review began asking writers to think out loud on the page about the unfolding international crisis, to capture the immediacy of a swiftly changing global pandemic. This crisis has mostly been told through the voices of journalists, scientists, and politicians, but in this collection, poets, essayists, scholars, and health care workers provide a more intimate and diverse account. Ranging from high matters of policy to ancient history to personal stories of how individuals were surviving their days, this vivid compilation presents a first draft of one of most tumultuous periods in modern history. Contributors: Katie Kitamura • Laura Kolbe • Nitin Ahuja • Natasha Randall • Rena Xu • Alicia Christoff • Miranda Featherstone • Maya C. Popa • Major Jackson • John Witt • Octávio Luiz Motta Ferraz • Joan Naviyuk Kane • Emmeline Clein • Nell Freudenberger • Briallen Hopper • Brandon Shimoda • Ben Purkert • Yusef Komunyakaa • Laren McClung • Eric O’Keefe-Krebs • Sean Lynch • Millicent Marcus • Meghana Mysore • Rachel Jamison Webster • Emily Ziff Griffin • Rowan Ricardo Philips • Kathryn Lofton • Monica Ferrell • Russell Morse • Randi Hutter Epstein • Noreen Khawaja • Victoria Chang • Joyelle McSweeney • Khameer Kidia • Emily Greenwood • Elisa Gabbert • Emily Bernard • Hafizah Geter • Emily Gogolak • Roger Reeves

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Reviews

We are still making sense of the COVID-19 pandemic. A World Out of Reach gives us a path towards understanding by offering direction from diverse domains: personal vignettes, poetry, law, public health and history. This multicultural compendium is unflinching in depicting what we face while giving hope that the human spirit is resilient and determined. -Jerome Groopman, M. D., Harvard Medical School, author of The Measure of Our Days A World Out of Reach is a necessary and illuminating archive. . . . Invaluable and absorbing. -Cathy Park Hong, author of Minor Feelings: An Asian-American Reckoning 'Who are we-who were we-in the pandemic?' Meghan O'Rourke asks in the introduction to this remarkable new anthology. A World Out of Reach is an astonishing look at the early months of COVID-19. -Jess Row, author of White Flights: Race, Fiction, and the American Imagination This book will be valuable for decades to come for anyone who wants to study, analyze, or simply contemplate what happened to America and the world in 2020. -Ruth Franklin, author of Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life This absorbing and impressive gathering-broad in cultural and geographic range-beautifully integrates the immediate with long-range views. This is a special collection. -Langdon Hammer, Yale University

"“Here diverse contributors, from Zimbabwe to Rikers to Yale itself, discuss their fear for loved ones, their adjustment to new conditions, and their research into historical precedents (AIDS) or structural inequalities behind the pandemic.”—Alexander Wells, Exberliner “We are still making sense of the COVID-19 pandemic. A World Out of Reach gives us a path towards understanding by offering direction from diverse domains: personal vignettes, poetry, law, public health and history. This multicultural compendium is unflinching in depicting what we face while giving hope that the human spirit is resilient and determined.”—Jerome Groopman, M. D., Harvard Medical School, author of The Measure of Our Days   “A World Out of Reach is a necessary and illuminating archive. . . . Invaluable and absorbing.”—Cathy Park Hong, author of Minor Feelings: An Asian-American Reckoning ""'Who are we—who were we—in the pandemic?' Meghan O'Rourke asks in the introduction to this remarkable new anthology. A World Out of Reach is an astonishing look at the early months of COVID-19.”—Jess Row, author of White Flights: Race, Fiction, and the American Imagination   “This book will be valuable for decades to come for anyone who wants to study, analyze, or simply contemplate what happened to America and the world in 2020.”—Ruth Franklin, author of Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life   “This absorbing and impressive gathering—broad in cultural and geographic range—beautifully integrates the immediate with long-range views. This is a special collection.”—Langdon Hammer, Yale University"

Here diverse contributors, from Zimbabwe to Rikers to Yale itself, discuss their fear for loved ones, their adjustment to new conditions, and their research into historical precedents (AIDS) or structural inequalities behind the pandemic. -Alexander Wells, Exberliner We are still making sense of the COVID-19 pandemic. A World Out of Reach gives us a path towards understanding by offering direction from diverse domains: personal vignettes, poetry, law, public health and history. This multicultural compendium is unflinching in depicting what we face while giving hope that the human spirit is resilient and determined. -Jerome Groopman, M. D., Harvard Medical School, author of The Measure of Our Days A World Out of Reach is a necessary and illuminating archive. . . . Invaluable and absorbing. -Cathy Park Hong, author of Minor Feelings: An Asian-American Reckoning 'Who are we-who were we-in the pandemic?' Meghan O'Rourke asks in the introduction to this remarkable new anthology. A World Out of Reach is an astonishing look at the early months of COVID-19. -Jess Row, author of White Flights: Race, Fiction, and the American Imagination This book will be valuable for decades to come for anyone who wants to study, analyze, or simply contemplate what happened to America and the world in 2020. -Ruth Franklin, author of Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life This absorbing and impressive gathering-broad in cultural and geographic range-beautifully integrates the immediate with long-range views. This is a special collection. -Langdon Hammer, Yale University

Author Information

Meghan O’Rourke is Editor of The Yale Review and the author of the best-selling memoir The Long Goodbye and the poetry collections Once,Halflife, and Sun in Days. She is currently completing a book about contested chronic illness.

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