More Letters from the Edge
Outrider Conversations
by Margaret Randall
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Pub Date Sep 09 2025 | Archive Date Not set
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Description
A collection of letters exchanged between the author and four “outriders”—artists, writers, and activists who risk everything to confront censorship, injustice, and the constraints of convention
In More Letters from the Edge, Margaret Randall continues her exploration of the power of correspondence, revealing the intimate and unguarded exchanges that define lives lived at the margins of convention. Through letters, interviews, and fragments of memory, she invites us into conversations with four fearlessly radical writers, artists, and activists: Arturo Arango, Kathy Boudin, Jane Norling, and Robert Schweitzer. Their voices—translated, remembered, and preserved—offer urgent reflections on risk, resistance, and the act of making meaning in a world that, now more than ever, seeks to silence dissent. More than historical artifacts, these conversations bridge past and present, proving that the fight for creative and political integrity is never confined to a single era. More Letters from the Edge is a testament to those who push against the edges, opening doors for all who follow.
Margaret Randall is a poet, writer, translator, photographer, and activist who has lived in New York, Mexico City, Havana, Cuba, Managua, Nicaragua, and Albuquerque, New Mexico, with short stays in North Vietnam and Lima, Peru. Her time in these places often coincided with major sociopolitical upheavals or pivotal historic moments. She edited an important bilingual literary magazine for eight years out of Mexico City and has known some of the great minds of her generation. When she returned to the United States, the US government ordered her deported because of opinions expressed in some of her books, and she was forced to wage a five-year battle for restoration of citizenship. Randall is the recipient of numerous international awards and the author of over 200 books, five of which were published by New Village Press: My Life in 100 Objects, Artists in My Life, Risking a Somersault in the Air, Luck, and Letters from the Edge.
A Note From the Publisher
Arturo Arango, a Cuban novelist and screenwriter, was part of a vibrant literary community that gathered in Randall’s Havana apartment in the 1970s. A fierce advocate for artistic freedom, he played a key role in resisting censorship during the Quinquenio Gris and beyond, remaining deeply critical of the revolution while never leaving Cuba. His letters, originally in Spanish and translated for this collection, capture the fraught landscape of Cuban literature, from moments of high tension over censorship to the challenges of preserving creative integrity.
The late Kathy Boudin reflects on the ideological convictions that shaped her militant activism and the profound reckoning that followed. Writing from prison, she examines the complexities of political violence, the personal cost of radical action, and the pursuit of knowledge as a means of personal and political growth. Her correspondence traces the emotional and intellectual process of confronting past choices, as well as the unexpected turns her life took after her release.
Jane Norling, once a promising book designer in New York, left behind a life of privilege in New York publishing to immerse herself in the radical mural movement of San Francisco. Her letters explore the role of public art in revolutionary struggle, alongside personal challenges such as balancing creative ambition with the realities of motherhood. She also writes candidly about the difficulties of living with a partner battling heroin addiction, revealing the intersections of art, activism, and personal survival.
Robert Schweitzer, an art historian and curator, was ahead of his time in advocating for the ethical treatment of Indigenous artifacts and human remains in museums. His letters reflect his lifelong defiance of societal norms, from a childhood in which he was encouraged to explore freely beyond gendered expectations to his groundbreaking curatorial work. He also documents his involvement with the Zapatistas in Chiapas, an effort that led to his deportation from Mexico and further solidified his commitment to cultural justice.
Advance Praise
“Margaret Randall invites us once more into a dazzling kaleidoscope of cherished friendships, each one lived on the edge—on the edge of history, on the verge of revolution, on the threshold of the daring and the new. These are intimate love stories—not easy romances nor passing passions, but love stories forged in struggle, sometimes arduous and challenging, often exhausting, always complex, but ultimately deeply fulfilling. Randall thrusts us directly into the poetry of the everyday—the immediacy and the urgency—attuned to contradiction, ambiguity, and uncertainty. More Letters from the Edge incites voyages—journeys in search of new solutions to old problems, explorations of spirit spaces and imaginative landscapes, rambles away from the cold reality of the world we inhabit toward a world that could be or should be but is not yet. Here is an antidote to propaganda, dogma, impositions, and stereotypes of every kind—a bright light in bleak times.”
—Bill Ayers, author, When Freedom is the Question, Abolition is the Answer
“Deep friendship and generosity are at the heart of this book, which proves that the political is personal. A rare and compelling record of the inseparability of art, life, and politics, More Letters from the Edge is at once a history of ongoing activist (and sometimes militant) resistance since the 1960s and the emotional lives of the four amazing protagonists. It also functions as another chapter in editor Margaret Randall’s memoirs, of her years in a turbulent Latin America, and ever since. Motherhood, incarceration, family, social responsibility, poetry, and revolution are only a few of its focuses. The book is especially fascinating on the layers of recent Cuban history, a mixture of hope and realism, changing times and retrospective pride and regrets. Friendship is the soil, enduring faith in the value of resistance is the crop, which continues to nourish us.”
—Lucy R. Lippard
“All over the globe, Margaret Randall has been an eyewitness to revolutions, both violent and cultural. She has walked among the homes of the ‘miserably poor’ with ‘violence in the air,’ where the women are “always waiting, anguished.’ Even so, she lives with ‘an innate sense of justice, even if it’s mostly a justice deferred. One feels a sense of solidarity, of empathy for the impoverished of the world’ Both politically astute and personally intense—her children have ‘drawn more love from [her] than anyone or anything else’—this wise book is both a mirror of and a model for our times. Here in 2025, looking back is foresight: Randall’s inherently creative resistance to both materialism and fascism is to maintain a fierce and inspiring optimism. So may we all.”
—Bryce Milligan, poet, critic, and publisher/editor of Wings Press
“More Letters from the Edge is blessed by the intimate bravado of truth, the storyteller’s gift. In this series of riveting and relentless testimonies gathered lovingly and with great respect and honor by Margaret Randall, we are offered histories of suffering, transformation, and love. These intimate testimonies of lives lived offer hope in the form of political activism alongside deep personal and spiritual introspection. We are witness to the inner essence of souls turned inside out. The reader is grateful for this incredible gift. The story of these extraordinary lives rooted in social justice are banners for our century, beacons of light in a world seemingly dark without moral compass. I left the book with my heart afire.”
—Denise Chavez, author of Street of Too Many Stories
Available Editions
EDITION | Other Format |
ISBN | 9781613322758 |
PRICE | $25.00 (USD) |
PAGES | 376 |