TODAY: In 1472, Aztec poet and ruler of the city-state of Texcoco, Nezahualcoyotl, dies.
- “The tragedy of digital manipulation was not just that individuals were harassed and abused but that they once again were being divided from their own reality.” Peter Pomerantsev on the bots vs. the activists. | Lit Hub Technology
- “You, right now, can choose to set aside the mindset of the colonizer and become native to place, you can choose to belong.” Robin Wall Kimmerer on choosing a relationship to the land not defined by greed. | Lit Hub Politics
- “Even when Barack Obama became president the names of the recent dead haunted my sleep.” Honorée Fannone Jeffers on the endless mourning of the present. | Lit Hub
- Ann Kjellberg on the hardships facing black-owned bookstores, from the pandemic to police violence. | Lit Hub
- Eight new books you should read in June, as recommended by Lit Hub staff and contributors. | Lit Hub
- Writing the story of a disappearing city: How Zan Romanoff learned to (mostly) stop worrying and depict a transient Los Angeles. | Lit Hub
- Beyond Mount Everest: Elen Turner recommends essential contemporary Nepalese writing, from Manjushree Thapa, Samrat Upadhyay, and more. | Lit Hub
- The hidden lives of gay men in China: Jiaming Tang on “Tongzhi” in Shanghai. | Lit Hub
- Parul Sehgal on Claudia Rankine’s Citizen, Jeffrey C. Stewart on Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be An Antiracist, Darryl Pinckney on Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow, and more of the Reviews You Need to Read This Week. | Book Marks
- Bad roommates? Strict parents? Nosy neighbors? Whatever your quarantine situation may be, Lauren A. Forry has a recommendation for you! | CrimeReads
- “The urge in a particular cop to extinguish a black man’s life does not go away just by firing them or altering laws. You have to change their heart, too, not just the law of a land.” Gabrielle Bellot on James Baldwin, Do the Right Thing, and George Floyd. | Catapult
- Prominent writer, activist, and academic Rachel Cargle is opening a bookstore and writing center in Ohio that will champion marginalized authors. | Harper’s Bazaar
- Poetry after the “Black Death” in the 14th century wasn’t widely supportive of social change. The opposite was often true. | The Conversation
- “We want to erase the past rather than address it. The pain needs to be addressed.” Read a profile of Jericho Brown. | The Bitter Southerner
- “Our gardens must grow. That is a metaphor and a literal truth.” Imani Perry on her relationship to land. | The Paris Review
- “Military hardware not only makes civilian cops look like soldiers; it makes them more likely to act like soldiers, too.” How American police became militarized. | New York Review of Books
- “These posts make anti-racism feel like a trendy, white self-improvement program, completely disconnected from redistributing power.” Megan Reid on the public performance of anti-racism. | Bustle
Also on Lit Hub: On Freddie Mercury’s love of the opera • Understanding the complexities of Cuba: A reading list • Read a story from Can Xu’s collection I Live in the Slums, trans. by Karen Gernant and Chen Zeping.
