Vestige (noun): a trace, mark or a visible sign of something that once was; the smallest trace.

Although what fascinates me about history is in part the battles, big ideas, and theories that have molded human kind, I am most captured by the vestiges; The minuscule traces; The things that didn’t belong, the moments that exist in echoes, or within the tangled script of a lost diary, immeasurably small in comparison to their abundant significance.

For me, vestiges exist everywhere. They are the chapters on oppression that my textbooks leave out; they are my smile lines when someone tells me I look like my mother; they are cracks on the spines of used novels I buy; And they are the quietness and memory of a species that moves on too fast.

Vestiges are humanity’s fine print. They tell the stories that everyone else would like to forget.

The Vestige Review by Nursi is a student led publication that strives to evaluate and give voice to these stories. It is certainly not a news channel, nor does it promise the reporting and accuracy of one. However, I do hope to maintain that presented articles, opinions, and other  literary works will have a human focus: whether that is history, diplomacy, literature, law or the other sorts of vestiges that define us.

Over the years, I have noticed something inquisitive about my way of writing.

Throughout my childhood, I had often considered myself a writer, even if it was simply writing bad fiction on the back of school notebooks, unusual poetry reserved for journals, or even precocious essays about the world before I even understood it (and I’m sure I do not yet).

However, this identity, so unwavering, seemed to transform as I began to write, not just for myself, but for an audience. Whether it was work for English class, articles for my school paper, or even things I tried to put out online, there was something altered about the way my words would flow.

In the beginning I thought that writing for people necessitated perfection and performance, an inauthenticity I was not ready to bear.

Although gradually, with growing knowledge of history, culture, and geopolitics, I realized that a writer with an audience doesn’t write so people read, they write so people live, so people reason, so that the battles of this world are not fought by flesh but with sentences and stanzas.

That is why building this platform is so significant, not so others can simply consume my content, but so change and learning can occur. Both for the writer and reader.

Notes From the Writer:

Hello! As a high school student and journalist, I hope others who are either like or unlike me will find value in my content. I aspire to be an international lawyer and journalists but am currently busying myself with building a space for my writing and focusing on my studies.

like a stereotypical blogger, I also love literature! open to any book recs. My favorite genres are historical fiction, literary fiction and YA.

My current website for The Vestige Review is still under constriction but will be up soon and feature longer, more detailed essays so stay tuned.