McSWEENEY’S ISSUE 43

With not one but two books to hold in your hands, and not two but four incredible fold-out die-cut covers to traverse with your eyes, Issue 43 packs in a pretty incredible procession of payoffs—there are new stories from Charles Baxter, T.C. Boyle, and Catherine Lacey, along with a stunning set of pieces from the newest nation in the world; there is nonfiction exploring the fate of revolutionaries in Libya and former contributors in New Orleans and long-term inmates in the United States Penitentiary in Marion, Illinois; and there are all kinds of other things to discover, too, in between those Gregory Euclide–designed covers, which you will spread out and peer through and pore over until you can take no more. Don’t let yourself miss this one!

Table of Contents:

Letters from Nathan C. Martin, Thao Nguyen, Avery Monsen, Doogie Horner, Rachel Sommerville, and Patrick Shaffner

Charity by Charles Baxter

Like Penelope by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya

Burning Bright by T.C. Boyle

The Texan from Gaza Does Yoga in Prison by Noor Elashi

Moment Stay by Catherine Lacey

Zero Hour by William Wheeler

There is a Country: New Fiction From the New Nation of South Sudan

Introduction by Nyuol Lueth Tong

Escape by Edward Eremugo Luka

Port Sudan Jornal by Victor Lugala

The Bastard by Nyuol Lueth Tong

Lexicographicide by Taban Lo Liyong

Holy Warrior by David L. Lukudu

Potato Thief by John Oryem

Light of Day by Samuel Garang Akau