And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again

"Mexican American writer and educator Stavans has gleaned powerful responses to the pandemic from 52 contributors who share their experiences in deftly crafted essays, poems, photographs, and artwork. . . . The impressive cast of contributors-Jhumpa Lahiri, Mario Vargas Llosa, Claire Messud, Ariel Dorfman, Rivka Galchen, Daniel Alarcon, and others-reveal feelings of fear, loneliness, and, for some, a surprising sense of connection. . . . Although many look optimistically to the future, for others, the pandemic has laid bare a long plague of inequality and hatreds. Stirring reflections to illuminate dark times."
-Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

"A genre- and border-crossing anthology of mostly translated reactions to the coronavirus [that] juxtaposes styles-poetry next to literary criticism, experimental fiction next to personal essay-in a way that is consistently disorienting and sometimes jarring, but pleasantly so. . . . Uncertainty is a driving theme in And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again. So is brokenness: broken bodies, hearts, medical systems, immigration systems, and more. . . . [French Tunisian writer Hubert Haddad's] story is a collage of fictional 'false starts, drafts, approximations, [and] broken-off openings' that describe and evoke the 'hazy driftlessness' of quarantined life. Its choppy, static structure captures the dysfunction of pandemic time."

-Lily Meyer, The Atlantic

"A prism reflecting outrage, fear, bewilderment-and yes, even small joys, such as cleaner air with fewer cars on the streets. It's left to the arts to make sense of this scourge through eloquence. Ilan Stavans conducts here what one contributor calls 'a symphony of voices.' They sing of our despair while beseeching assurance. . . . Perhaps, in 2120, earthlings will open And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again as a time capsule, to read of their ancestors struggling to survive a year none of them ever imagined."

-Lanie Tankard, On the Seawall