This issue, published Winter 1989, is themed around Jonathan Raban's article, "New World," in which he travels aboard cargo ship from Liverpool to New York City in order to make a new home in America. He tries to relate his journey to that of millions of European immigrants , but he speaks English, his trip is relatively quick and plush, and he has a small but nice apartment waiting when he arrives. Still, his observations are wry and humorous, especially after he arrives and views the U.S. with the eyes of an outsider.
I expected the rest of the issue to be about people going to unfamiliar places, but the theme doesn't follow through. The longest article, Rian Malan's "Msinga" comes closest, but it's more about him returning to a South Africa he well knows and trying to live in an Apartheid system his own ancestors created. Two essays are well-written, but are articles about how the authors each came to create their most famous works, and don't have anything really to do with relocation.
The best entry is one of only two fiction pieces, "Speaking of Courage" by Tim O'Brien, in which a Vietnam vet struggles to communicate anything of meaning now that he's back in his midwestern hometown.
In total, this issue seems to have lost it's way. The last two articles feel completely unnecessary. ( )