Han Ong

A month and a half had gone by, and he still had no news from home.

He did not seek out ways to get in touch with his wife.

He was more comfortable not imagining how worried she was about him, her desires, anxieties, and fears.

Hey, Debra.

Well, I was trawling through the fiction archives looking for a story to read for the podcast.

And I sort of set myself a parameter of going back 15 years through the fiction archives and then scrolling through to the present day.

And I'd happen upon this story, which I remember really loving when I first read it.

And that was pretty quick into my search.

And so that was that.

The decision was made.

I've been so floored by the story when I first read it.

And I don't remember when I'd read it, if I'd read it when it was first published or much later.

I chose it also in conjunction with the wonderful profile that M. Gessen had published in the magazine of Ulitskaya.

But here the chronology gets a little hazy for me.

I don't know whether I'd first read The Guessing Profile and then found the story or had already read the story because this story was in fact published in the magazine before The Guessing Profile.

And then, you know, reading The Guessing Profile after reading the story sort of helped bolster my love for this particular writer and this particular short story.

Well, two things.

I love her as a writer and I love her as a person of conscience in her native Russia.

So I'm full of admiration.

I'm always looking for how should an artist be in this day and age of incipient fascism and all of that.