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The Great Affair

Letters by, and conversations with, friends, acquaintances, and familiar strangers about their work/passions, what they notice in the world, and how they’re finding their own place in it.
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Rebecca Chew: "I think being an outsider, or having that perspective, helps"
Q&A: An art director on moving from Malaysia to the U.S. for a dream job at the start of the pandemic, the differences in being a creative here and…
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Emily Ding
Mabel Ho: “I still flirt with the idea of leaving. But that dream plays to a different tune now.”
Guest essay: After years imagining what her exit plan would look like, A Malaysian finally comes to terms with her choice to remain.
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Emily Ding
Wael Qarssifi: "Everyone saying what they think, out of love, is an act of activism"
Q&A: A Syrian refugee journalist in Malaysia on piecing together a life for himself in exile in Kuala Lumpur, and reconciling his feelings for his…
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Emily Ding
Abby Seiff: "The water failing them, they take to the land"
Dispatch from Cambodia + Q&A: A journalist tells the story of the stateless Vietnamese forced to leave their floating homes on the Tonle Sap.
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Emily Ding
Travis Criddle: "I walked with an open mind and heart, and no plans"
Q&A: An American acquaintance from my early backpacking days talks about everything that has taken him to his new home along Italy’s Via Francigena.
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Emily Ding
Sohini Chattopadhyay: My father needed a liver. Did it have to be from me?
Dispatch from India: A journalist on how conflicted she felt when she considered donating part of her liver to her father—in a country where women face…
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Emily Ding
Kaori Fujimoto: What we give when we give money to the dead
Guest essay: A Japanese essayist on negotiating deep-rooted traditions and her own wayward path, and how this shaped her relationship with her father.
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Emily Ding
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