Unveiling Hidden Realities: Anna Badkhen’s To See Beyond Challenges Perception and Truth
“I am a migrant. I moved to the United States from Russia because I was looking for a better life for me and my children; this makes me an economic migrant. Who, me? I often forget. I don’t fit the stereotype. But the stereotype is contagious; it has infected me, too, dislocated my sense of reality.”
Given the difficulty and complexity of her subjects, it would be easy to assume the book is bleak, when it is, in fact, infused with hope and wonder, not the easy kind, but the kind that has been earned through clear-eyed witness. Many of her shorter, flash-length essays open into astonishment precisely because she has not looked away from the difficult truth. In her micro-essay “How to Fly Kites,” Badkhen arrives at an image of wonder so physical and so precise it stops the breath: arms raised, hands open, as if tethering a kite to the pure light above. And in “Shortcut,” she reminds us: “Inspiration . . . comes from the struggles along the winding and difficult path.” The close attentiveness of her essays allows the worst parts of human nature to commingle with the most wondrous parts—and this makes the wondrous, when it arrives, feel true.
