Relegation Reader

At a moment when artificial intelligence is challenging writers in every facet of artistic production, The Relegation Reader celebrates writing in its rawest, most evocative form. Each piece is an emerging star in a constellation of new poetry and prose that illuminates our shared world.

In this collection, edited by Paris-based author Will Mountain Cox (Roundabout and With Paris in Mind: Talking with Artists of This Generation), twenty-six contemporary writers in the US, UK, and Europe offer a fresh view of identity, technology, memory, and place.

These voices—which include a poet shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize; a recipient of the 2021 Berlin Senate grant for non-German literature; three writers mentored by the publisher Giancarlo DiTrapano, who lived and worked in New York, Rome, and Naples; and many other remarkable talents—pull you through portals into cultural landscapes you’ve likely romanticized only via screen.

From Berlin to Baltimore, from a mountaintop to the subway, the Reader holds up a 360-degree mirror to our hyper-networked society, connecting unexpected emotional harmonies to reveal that the heart of who we are lies not in the answers, but in the asking.