In the March issue of Guernica, I published “From the Edges of a Broken World,” a personal essay by Joanna Chen. Many critics have said the essay normalized the violence Israel has unleashed in Gaza. I disagree. I saw the piece as an example of the difficult work that Guernica is known for: capturing, with complexity and nuance, how such violence is normalized, and how a violent state extracts complicity from its citizens.
As much as it needs allies and weapons, a violent democracy also needs the consent of “everyday” people like those whose voices appear in Chen’s piece. A readership like that of Guernica—people who live in democracies with the strength and willingness to unleash utter destruction upon others—are accustomed to thinking that we give (or contest) consent for this violence at the ballot box, or that we can revoke our consent with public protest.
I saw in Chen’s essay a reminder that our consent is also—and for many of us, more influentially—dispensed or withdrawn in how we deliver care.
A personal essay by a woman writer about the political nature of caregiving also struck me as aligned with a long tradition of feminist writing in Guernica’s pages.
I respect that many readers did not see the essay this way, and I have learned from many thoughtful critiques. Guernica has also heard from many readers who valued the essay, each with their own interpretation.
I’ve been a Guernica reader for more than 15 years, and a volunteer editor, in various roles, for over ten. The magazine’s capacity to hold multiple points of view—on the world, or on a given literary work—has always struck me as its strength. I anticipated different, even opposing, interpretations of Chen’s essay. And I anticipated that Guernica, with a long history of publishing Palestinian writers, would be able to hold space for such conversations.
Guernica is an essential part of the literary landscape, bringing urgent and eloquent voices to a wide readership. In these weeks, I have prioritized internal conversations with the Guernica founder and board president to preserve the magazine and clarify its values over my public engagement with the unfolding debate.
But it has become clear to me that Guernica’s commitment to writing on war, injustice, and oppression has evolved. The magazine stands by its retraction of the work; I do not. Guernica will continue, but I am no longer the right leader for its work.
It has been an honor to lead Guernica as editor-in-chief for the last three years. Our volunteer team published more than 500 writers; inaugurated a writers’ workshop residency; and launched popular new sections reimagining literary criticism and books coverage and amplifying global literary writing. The magazine’s operating budget has grown more than four-fold over these three years, with support from, among others, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, the Amazon Literary Partnership, the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses, and the Whiting Foundation’s Literary Magazine Prize.
I will always be grateful for the trust, collaboration, and friendship of the magazine’s founder and president, and for the privilege of working, over the last decade-plus, with so many talented writers.
