Stack at home: Isolarii, November 2021

by Stack editorial in November 2021

Isolarii is a publishing project that launched last year, reimagining an obscure Renaissance literary genre of ‘island books’ for the 21st century. As the blurb on the outside of the packet explains, “each book in this series is an island, a world encapsulated. Together, these form an archipelago of the most groundbreaking cultural forces — emerging and established — across continents and disciplines.” Previous issues have included new Russian feminist poetry, avant-garde Chinese fiction and Art Spiegelman’s first new work in over a decade — they’re all completely different from each other, and all presented as, “Islands from which to view the world anew.”

The island-based concept is particularly suited to this issue, in which the renowned curator Hans Ulrich Obrist collects a selection of his conversations with the writer and philosopher Édouard Glissant. Born on the Caribbean island of Martinique in 1928, during his life Glissant argued passionately against the homogenising power of globalisation, and used islands and archipelagos as a recurring motif while demonstrating the importance of diversity and mixing.

Isolarii is also the smallest magazine we’ve ever delivered. It’s roughly the size of a computer mouse, which one of our subscribers pointed out. We’ve selected our favourite images taken by subscribers in their homes, below. Scroll down to see our winning picture of the month.

5. Blue on blue

We are a little obsessed ourselves with this shockingly blue picture of Isolarii, taken by Stack subscriber Abbie.