Forty-eight hours after Alex Pretti was felled by federal ICE agents on a Minneapolis street, dated January 24, 2026, we released a “Letter From Minnesota” written by the poet Dobby Gibson. In the moment of the government’s forceful occupation of the Twin Cities, I remarked on what had occurred:
Children and their families have been torn apart, schools targeted, and two American citizens—Renee Good and Alex Pretti—lost their lives to violence in public view. In the ensuing weeks, our plan was to share letters from Minnesotans—novelists, journalists, poets, memoirists—so that they might speak from both witness and warning about the rise of authoritarian governance in the United States.
That very first letter blossomed into forty-four entries, forming a sequence that continued through February 20. These letters have now been gathered—along with about a dozen fresh contributions—in American Occupation, a collection slated for publication by the University of Minnesota Press on January 26, 2027, edited by myself and Su Hwang, a poet from the Twin Cities. We are honored to unveil the cover below, a design by Jeff Clark.
As the press release explains:
American Occupation records a remarkable outpouring of literary witness while the memory and aftermath of Operation Metro Surge continue to echo through communities nationwide. More than a snapshot of a single moment, American Occupation situates Operation Metro Surge in dialogue with the broader arc of American expansion, imperialism, borders, and the government’s abuse of power against its own civilians. The collection invites readers to ponder what unfolds when the machinery of occupation is deployed at home, and what forms of resistance become possible when ordinary people refuse to accept terror as normal.
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AMERICAN OCCUPATION CONTRIBUTORS
Angela Ajayi • Anonymous • Charles Baxter • Victoria Blanco • Jennifer Eli Bowen • Katherine Packert Burke • Zeke Caligiuri • David Aiona Chang • Dana Chiueh • Heid E. Erdrich • Nick Estes • Nimo Farah • V.V. Ganeshananthan • Shannon Gibney • Dobby Gibson • Sarah Green • Molly Beth Griffin • Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl • Marian Hassan • Hedgiee • Laurie Hertzel • Carolyn Holbrook • Siri Hustvedt • Đenise Hạnh Huỳnh • Andrea Jenkins • Michael Kleber-Diggs • Ed Bok Lee • Josina Manu Maltzman • Will McGrath • Jim Moore • David Mura • Nia Navarro • Sahra Noor • Kara Olson • Peter Pearson • Angela Pelster • Bao Phi • Kaia Preus • Susan Raffo • Marcie Rendon • Kate Romero and Gustavo Romero • Sean Sherman • Sun Yung Shin • Gabriela Spears-Rico • Michael Torres • Kawai Strong Washburn • Sana Wazwaz • chaun webster • Diane Wilson • A.E. Wynter • Kao Kalia Yang • Ahmed Ismail Yusuf • Michelle Zamanian.
