A review of WRITING FOR JUSTICE: Victor Séjour, the Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara, and the Age of Transatlantic Emancipations, by Elèna Mortara. Lebanon NH: Dartmouth College Press. University Press of New England, 2015. The title of this book and especially its subtitle attest to the ambition and historic sweep of the subjects and . . .
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To most people, the idea that lectures in literature classes have policy implications will seem laughable. Such people, I’m fairly sure, haven’t spent a good deal of time in Bosnia-Herzegovina. And they certainly don’t know its history. As for me, given recent headlines, well, lately I’ve been thinking a lot about a . . .
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Refugees under police escort to Brežice last October.(Jeff J Mitchell, Getty Images, from The Guardian) During the month of October 2015, Hungary closed its southern borders and refugees crossing Serbia were diverted through Croatia and Slovenia. Each day some eight thousand refugees began entering Slovenia, a country with a population of less than . . .
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Jean Jullien, “Peace for Paris” (from @jean_jullien on Twitter) Every discussion about the Middle East today, understandably, turns sooner or later to the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Talking heads may not have yet sounded this particular theme in connection to what happened in Paris on Friday, but it shouldn’t take long. The US . . .
Read MoreIt was already great that Columbia’s Slavic Department and the Harriman Institute, at Radmila Gorup’s prompting, invited Dubravka Ugrešić to teach a month-long mini-course this October. And then Aleksandar Bošković, who teaches Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian language and literature in the Columbia Slavic Department, decided to share the joy: he organized a . . .
Read MoreFinal Statement from the Defendant, Erri De Luca Tribunale di Torino, 19 October 2015 Even if I were not the writer on trial here for instigation, I would be in this courtroom today. Beyond the insignificance of my personal case, I believe the charges that I answer to are a social experiment, an . . .
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Le Monde, 17 October 2015 Erri De Luca didn’t make that trip he’d planned to the Frankfurt Book Fair on the October 14. He just didn’t feel like it … didn’t feel like talking about “that subject… in a marketplace atmosphere,” didn’t feel like hearing his case brought up, between one sale . . .
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Operation Mare Nostrum, June 2014 Photo by Massimo Sestini A person runs out of his burning house. Outside he finds firemen, but before letting him go they ask for his papers. If he doesn’t have them, then he can die in the flames. This is what happens today on the borders of . . .
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The debut novel from Croatian-American writer Sara Nović, Girl at War, has received significant praise from both readers and critics in influential publications such as the Guardian and the New York Times. According to such reviews, the book succeeds in representing distant experience as universal; it enables readers to empathize deeply with the main character and . . .
Read More“Even when we’ve got the seats and they’re standing up, they’re still taking our places.” With this line the Brazilian poet Ledo Ivo captured our sense of intolerance towards the foreigners that misfortune has thrust among us. It was Easter in 1997 when the Italian military ship Sibilla rammed its bow into the Albanian . . .
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