Image: My Brother’s War © Jessica Hines

Welcome to Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature’s 10th edition. This issue focuses on INTIMACY in all its forms from a closeness and familiarity to the understanding and appreciation that comes with spending time with some one, some subject, or some place.

We hear from Alton Melvar M. Dapanas in a spellbinding conversation with Lavinia Spalding that radiates with exceptional women writers and writing. Harry Gruyaert’s long-term relationship with Morocco also comes to the fore with an essay and images from the legendary Magnum photographer in advance of his forthcoming publication. We stay with Morocco with debut writing from Azzeddine Tajjiou on the legacy of the Rif War. Intimacy and friendship can often be found in the midst of war as Leah Kaminsky portrays in “Doll’s Eye” and Bashir Sakhawarz in “Escape from the Taliban,” whilst Jessica Hines takes us into its aftermath in “My Brother’s War.”

Sara Shah contributes a throbbing and intimate portrayal of New York, D.D. Wood recounts a personal encounter with a close friend, and the “Perfect Guide” goes well beyond their duties in David X. Lewis’s return to the publication. Intimacy also comes with reappraisal as we see in Lisa VanderVeen’s “Meeting the Mistress—an honest reflection on her husband’s betrayal. Nicolas D. Sampson unpicks Balzac’s Paris, whilst Marc Yamada asks us to place Hirokazu Kore-eda’s oeuvre in a wider body of humanistic, contemporary film.

We’re delighted to share an extract from Noo Saro Wiwa’s “Black Ghosts,” and Yoko Nogami’s trip with her parents in “Dōzo go-buji de” in an outstanding debut, with thanks to Paula Lee. Thanks also go to Faith Adiele for coaching a new group of writers through her workshops in Morocco and bringing more writers into the fold.

Thanks too to Editors—Vimi Bajaj, Marie Baleo, Devi Laskar, David Ishaya Osu, Kerry Neville, Joelle Renstrom, Samuel Autman, Paula Read, Tanya Goodman, Kevan Manwaring, Anis Ibhaim— those already mentioned above, the wider masthead, and all who contribute each issue. We have now passed 21,000 readers over the course of the last year and we thank you all for being on this journey with us.

There are tales of country festivals, border scams, artificially intelligent ghostwriting machines, close-knit communities, and so much more. Authors have responded to time alone, time with friends, and moments with strangers. From salons to police stations to hot dogs, there are innumerable ways to explore this issue. I give you INTIMACY.

— Matthew Webb, Director, Panorama

Morocco: An Expression of Enchantment

Harry Gruyaert

France

My Brother’s War

Jessica Hines

USA

The Automata Chronicles: The Age of Ghostwriters

In Conversation with MacDonaldStrand

Matthew Webb

Contemporary Film Directors: Kore-eda Hirokazu

Beyond Ozu and Loach

Marc Yamada

USA

Hiroshi Sugimoto UA Playhouse New York 1978

Hiroshi Sugimoto: Time Machine

Steve Russell

In his ‘Theaters’ series he matched the exposure to the length of the film that was about to be shown. The compressed images radiate off the walls. The beautifully floating dust frozen in time. Such is the intensity of these images they appear to be lit by light boxes. They are further heightened by the wonderful reflections in the polished floor.

Sugimoto creates clever and shrewd images that have a familiarity to us, each composition so controlled and realised. We’re caught in a long moment of time, allowing you to enter its own dimension, slightly or completely off-kilter to the one you are in; a moving, philosophical and meditative experience.

Solace

Sarah Mei Herman

Netherlands/China

BOOKS

Black Ghosts

Noo Saro-Wiwa

Doll’s Eye

Leah Kaminsky

Australia

Escape from the Taliban

Bashir Sakhawarz

Savage Noble

Nicolas D. Sampson

From the Edge

Nicolas D. Sampson

An Iteration of Reckoning

Lavinia Spalding on Travel Writing by Women

Alton Melvar M. Dapanas

Philippines

In this interview, Alton asks Lavinia about The Best Women’s Travel Writing anthology, the nebulous speculated futures of travel literature – in particular, travel writing by women – and the very people we become when we are on the (metaphorical and literal) road.

NONFICTION

Sylvie’s Big Bush

D.D. Wood

USA

Idle Pleasures of Zoning Out

Priya Dileep

India

Dōzo go-buji de (Have a Safe Trip)

Yoko Nogami

USA/Japan

EATEN

Frankly, I’m Yours: Or, Hot Dogs, an International Review

Claire O’Brien

USA

MEMOIR

Meeting the Mistress

Lisa VanderVeen

USA

Twenty Dollars Fake American, A Foreign Drama

Ephraim Scott Sommers

USA

The Trip to Manaoag

Edilberto C. Cruz

Philippines

Watershed

Mert Erogul

USA

A few years ago, during the Trump administration, I took a job as the doctor at a country music festival. It wasn’t the cast of country music all-stars that drew me all the way from Brooklyn to central Washington state, so much as the much-hyped Real America, the demographic that had gotten so much consideration since the prior election. The Watershed Festival, also known as the Red-Neck Burning Man, takes place each summer on an immense campground near Yakima, less than 150 miles inland from Seattle, but hundreds of miles off the grid of coastal liberal geographic nodes.