A “feeding chair” in the Guantanamo medical wing where hunger-striking detainees are force fed. Photo by Sgt. Brian Godette, Army 138th Public Affairs Detachment. (Mother Jones) “During these last decades the interest in professional fasting has markedly diminished. It used to pay very well to stage such great performances under one’s own management, . . .
Read MoreJe suis arrivée à Boston la veille du marathon. Le lendemain, tous les médias résonnaient du bruit des attentats. Moi qui viens de la région la plus pacifique du monde, la Suisse, j’ai été frappée par la façon professionnelle et émotionnelle dont ces événements ont été traités. Professionnelles parce que l’analyse de . . .
Read MoreI arrived in Boston on the eve of the marathon. The day after, the media buzzed with news of the attacks. Coming from Switzerland, the most peaceful place in the world, I was struck by the emotional and professional way these events were treated. Professional—within a few hours after a few poor . . .
Read MoreChechnya is like a small Afghanistan, occupied and brutalized by the Russians for almost 200 years. The Chechens, and their neighbors, fought back with all the means at their disposal against an invader that outnumbered and outgunned them. The Chechens resorted to ambush, hit-and-run and other guerilla tactics. The most recent spike . . .
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It seems unlikely that I will be doing today what I do probably at least 300 days of the year: walking from here in the North End across Boston proper, to the Museum of Fine Arts, or else Kenmore Square, and back again. As I write, looking out on the Italian American . . .
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How did I become a superhero? As a child in Mexico City, I devoured comic strips of all types. At first they were American imports like Batman, Spiderman, and The Avengers. What I most liked about them was the dual identity, say between Clark Kent and his alter ego. Then I found the native counterparts, . . .
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Chinua Achebe by Jerome Liebling, 1988, copyright Liebling Family Trust. A Brief Tribute to Professor Chinua Achebe I wouldn’t like to describe Professor Chinualumogu Achebe as an iroko tree. No, he was mightier than that. In a thick forest of copious trees, one tree always stands out: the Uzi tree. It is taller . . .
Read MoreYou won’t be surprised to hear that I get questioned, from time to time, about what sort of work MR prefers to publish. Generally the query comes from folks who know we’re a literary quarterly and don’t have to be told what one is. Come to think of it, perhaps you yourself have asked . . .
Read More(From a Sub-Sub-Intern) At the age of 27, as a soon-to-be Master of the Fine Arts, generally priding himself on the breadth of his reading, I decided at last that it could be put off no longer: it was time to read Moby-Dick. In this blog series, I’ll be attempting to organize my . . .
Read MoreThe Presence and Absence of Music in Mali Today In a recent NPR interview with Angelique Kidjo, journalist Michel Martin prompted a discussion of Kidjo’s political concerns and advocacy. Martin asked whether the girls served by the Malian branch of Kidjo’s Batonga Foundation—an organization dedicated to realizing universal access to secondary education for girls . . .
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