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Ha Jin. Photo: © Dorothy Greco.
This week at The Paris Review, we’re using our olfactory senses. Read on for Ha Jin’s Art of Fiction interview, Fleur Jaeggy’s story “Agnes,” and May Swenson’s poem “Daffodildo.”
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Ha Jin, The Art of Fiction No. 202 Issue no. 191 (Winter 2009)
INTERVIEWER What do you remember most about your arrival in the United States? JIN There was a chemical smell here. It was very alien, very overwhelming. Also a lot of people wore perfume. I know a woman who came here from China and said she couldn’t stop vomiting.
INTERVIEWER
What do you remember most about your arrival in the United States?
JIN
There was a chemical smell here. It was very alien, very overwhelming. Also a lot of people wore perfume. I know a woman who came here from China and said she couldn’t stop vomiting.
Photo: Sam Hood. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Agnes By Fleur Jaeggy, translated by Gini Alhadeff Issue no. 220 (Spring 2017)
Often, when I left the office, I’d go into some shops. I looked at everything meticulously. The small bottles of perfume, the jewelry. The cameras. I felt like stealing. For her.
Photo: Willem van de Poll. CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Daffodildo By May Swenson Issue no. 127 (Summer 1993)
A daffodil from Emily’s lot I lay beside her headstone on the first day of May. I brought another with me, threaded through my buttonhole, the spawn of ancestor she planted where, today, I trod her lawn. A yellow small decanter of her perfume, hermit-wild and without a stopper, next to her stone I filed to give her back her property— it’s well it cannot spill. Lolling on my jacket, Emily’s other daffodil …
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