Cover Photo: An illustration of the author in silhouette against a stained glass window, beyond which is the night sky on fire
Illustration by Sara Wong for Catapult

The Smell of Notre Dame Burning

This smell of Notre Dame burning was the smell of books older than all our lives—on fire.

Ruh

Pietà

Mishka Hoosen is a writer and researcher from Johannesburg in South Africa. Their work has appeared on the Ploughshares Blog, and in Bare Fiction, Plume, Illuminations, Rolling Stone South Africa, The Missing Slate, and others. They write extensively on perfume, madness, and the body. They are currently working on a novel, "Through Smoke", which will examine perfume as an embodiment of desire and remembrance in the postcolonial city.