Gold Mountain

by Stephen Haven

Originally published on April 2, 2008

Then on the Hudson, the lower west side of Manhattan, we sailed a slow sail, the sun half an hour high, the water glassy, then dead, and then though we hadn’t once thought of her suddenly she appeared floating filthy on the water, the lit woman, an immigrant herself, fire of the crowd who built [...]

Miao Village, Hainan Island

by Stephen Haven

Originally published on June 2, 2006

The women like nuns or 17th century Puritans except for the embroidered flash of bonnets that drew us on. They waved green shoots of bamboo: no photographs unless we paid. Little girls dressed the same, black blouses, skirts, mini almost. Pigs locked in bamboo pens, their piglets running free, and turkeys gripped, it seemed, by [...]