VQR Online

In Bangladesh, one year after the worst accident in the history of the garment industry, recovery remains a fragile process, justice seems elusive, and reform has a long way to go.

Twenty-​odd years ago, a friend of mine, a sober-​minded accountant, fell into an unwonted moment of irrational exuberance.

He was in a poem once, alive 
at the beginning, dead by the middle, 
haunting me at the end.

Bangladesh’s ready-​made garment (RMG) industry has been the sole force behind the country’s rapid industrialization.

Oh, obstreperous one, ornery outside of ordinary
protocols; paramilitary probie par 

excellence: Every evidence
you yield yells. 

In 2006, photographer Gina LeVay began her odyssey into the Spanish-​speaking world of toreras—​female matadors. “A lot of them have gotten gored, injured, and they just get up and want to do it again. They’re fearless.”

Listen to Allan Gurganus read his story in the Fall 2013 issue of VQR.