We are proud to present Issue 16, Purge, a defiant new edition of The Polyglot featuring ten young artists (18-25) who refuse the censorship of knowledge and language, of books and bodies, of memory and history.

Edited by Brett Boyd, Mitch Dexter, Sophie Gareau-Brennan, and Adriana Oniță, this issue is a collective stand against censorship in all its forms. As the editors write:

“What struck us was not only how distinct these youth voices are, but how each speaks to a different site of silencing while confronting the same threat: a widescale assault on our liberties to think, read, remember, write, experiment, love, and live freely.”

Whether through visual poetry, redacted texts, self-portraiture, photo-essays, copper etchings, or beadwork with +100 hours of sewing, these young artists simply refuse the way the world is 'given' to them. They do not flinch in the face of our era’s most violent erasures: consumer capitalism, media hypocrisy, the horrors of genocide, the suppression of ancestral languages and religions, and the internal weight of self-censorship.

From Alberta to Nigeria, from Iraq to Moldova, these ten young artists prove that writing and art can become a way of “asking the questions that could not be spoken out loud, of turning fear into reflection and confusion into form” (Hassan Ihssan Subhi).

We invite you to listen, ask questions, and learn from youth at every opportunity you are given.

🌍 Languages Featured: Arabic, Cree, Dene Gondi, English, Igbo, Romanian, Spanish, and Urdu.

🌀Price: $12 CAD for digital edition // $25 for print copy (limited edition, available at launch)

☀️ Launch Details: Coming this Summer to Edmonton! Stay tuned for official date and venue announcements.

Contributors:

Miles Anderson
Isabella “Naakah” Carriere
Franz
Nadia Zamora Hernandez
Marvellous Mmesomachi Igwe
Pip Maarschalk
Kiana Ramcharitar
Bia Siddiqui
Hassan Ihssan Subhi
Elizabeth W. J.

Layout & Design: Brett Boyd
Art on Cover: Nadia Zamora Hernandez
Managing Editor: Tamara Aschenbrenner