The forthcoming spring issue of the Los Angeles Review of Books Quarterly Journal features work by emerging, established, and award winning writers, including creative non-fiction, and poetry. This issue also features an original translation of work by short fiction writer Hisham Bustani, who has won accolades for bringing “a new wave of surrealism to [Arabic] literary culture.” Essays range over the following topics:

How did oranges become California’s iconic fruit? Tom Zoellner dives into the untold story of the Golden State’s early citrus industry in his essay “The Orange Industrial Complex.”
“If you’ve had sex, you have stories to tell about the people you’ve had sex with.” Starting from this truism, journalist Amanda Fortini draws connections between stories by (and feminist storytelling techniques of) Susan Minot, Louise Wareham Leonard, and Debra Monro.
What was America’s impact on famed South African novelist J.M. Coetzee’s fiction? Martin Woessner follows in Coetzee’s footsteps to UT Austin’s special collections (where Coetzee himself once studied) and looks for answers in Coetzee’s personal papers.
Occasioned by the death of influential historian and political scientist Benedict Anderson, Goenawan Mohamad writes a tribute to his friend and former teacher. Mohamad is the founder and editor of Tempo magazine, Indonesia’s most-respected newsmagazine.