From Winter 1980 Explore This Issue on Desperate Characters by Paula Fox, Irving Howe; & The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard By Diane Cole From the Winter 1980 Issue ← A Centered Voice: Susan Sontag’s Short Fiction (on I, Etcetera by Susan Sontag) → on The Right Promethean Fire: Imagination, Science, and Cultural Change by Ihab Hassan