Leslie Hickman

I do not want my voice to be valued only for the weight it lends to either side of an argument.

One of the best things about being Christian is remembering that I am free to love the people everone hates.

Much silence comes from the assumption that one is unable to communicate.

I forget what this is from, but I found it among my screenshots. I hope it is true of myself.

I just don’t know how to say no to another cup of coffee. I just don’t know how long do I gaze at the sea until I've had my fill.

Everything was under his power, so he served. He was the light of life, so he hid. When the crowd tried to crown him, the prince of peace fled. In him was the way of eternal life, so he died.

W.S. Merwin

‘Wildflowers by the stream do not remember the despair they hear.’

“If I were to die, surrounded by cold mountains, unknown to the world, repudiated by my own people, my strength at last exhausted, the sea would at the final moment fill my cell, come to raise me above myself and help me die without hatred.” — Albert Camus

I often wonder if deeply studying a topic unveils its truth or atomizes it and distributes it into ready categories.

Gustav Klimt, Poppy Field

New on @NewBooksNetwork: Serk-Bae Suh joins host Leslie Hickman @AJuseyo to discuss Against the Chains of Utility—literature, sacrifice, & anti-utilitarian thought in 1970s–80s South Korea. buff.ly/UgixwzY #NewBooksNetwork #AcademicPodcast #AuthorTalk #KoreanStudies

This was such a fun interview, and an enjoyable book! @NewBooksNetwork "Suh posits that literature’s relevance to society lies in seemingly nihilistic sacrifice, viewing literature not as a proxy for politics but as the art of imagination in language." newbooksnetwork.com/against-the-ch…

Take heart. It doesn’t have to be this way.

The trees do no mind when they’re felled to make a fence. The ground doesn’t note when it’s covered in cement. The rock doesn’t care that you’ve carved in it your name. The narratives we create will prove fictions in the end.

From "That" by Oh Eun, Trans. by Seth Chandler

We must let what art invokes in others surprise us to the very end.

First reverse culture shock upon returning to the US: the prevalence of signs with phrases I would associate with battle, such as 'safe space, defend, protect, support, uphold, stand together/against, save, report, resist.'

Remember that this, too, is a foreign country.

Excited to share this interview with Benoit Berthelier and Immanuel Kim on their anthology of North Korean literature! As someone with a background in Korean Studies and Korean literary translation, this collection was especially fun to read and discuss. open.spotify.com/episode/1KqiuS…