Based on a true story: A magnificent portrayal of chaos, darkness, and adventure in Asia's Golden Triangle as the war wages in VietnamAdrift at the end of the Vietnam War, Paul Roberts and his girlfriend, Fay, are arrested at the Burmese-Thai border for smuggling a couple of ounces of hashish. Stranded in a small Thai prison, they become part of a grisly contest played out by opium warlords, corrupt border patrol police, and two AWOL GIs. The war echoes through the...

Likely National Book Award prospect (two-time finalist)Offers wisdom and connection between the grief of war and tragedies and the healing power and redemption of poetry and music through landscape and community.Award winning author of 13 books of poetry, translations, and prose spanning multiple decades.Balaban was a conscientious objector to Vietnam and went there anyway to volunteer in a children’s hospital in Saigon.Includes translations of...

"John Balaban’s sixth collection of poetry considers America in its innate beauty and complex ugliness, in its powerfully healing landscapes and its destructive misadventures. With a compelling lyricism and cinematic imagery, Empires showcases the pervasiveness of the human spirit across a diverse cast of characters, both modern and ancient. From the rubble of the World Trade Center to Washington’s troops crossing the Potomac to powerful insights into the Vietnam War, Balaban’s ge...

Stories of war and conflict form the backbone of much of the Western literary canon, portraying a certain image of heroism, stoicism, and survival in the face of violence. War and Imagination challenges the canon with essays, short stories, and a wide variety of perspectives.Paying particular attention to the twentieth century and prioritizing the writings of civilians, the works highlighted in War and Imagination offer an opportunity to challenge representations ...

The Winter 2022-23 Issue. Ploughshares is an award-winning journal of new writing. Since1971, Ploughshares has discovered and cultivated the freshest voices in contemporaryAmerican literature, and now provides readers with thoughtful and entertaining literature in avariety of formats. Find out why the New York Times named Ploughshares “the Triton amongminnows.”The Winter 2022-23 Issue, edited by Editor-in-chief Ladette Randolph and Poetry Editor John