Some time ago I visited an elderly couple who lived on the outskirts of a small German city. I had never met them, but I already knew some things about them: I knew that they were my girlfriend’s paternal grandparents, that they were readers of Theodor Fontane, that he had been a . . .
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A neighbor boy asked me what I remembered of the 1918 Flu Pandemic. I had to explain that, appearances aside, I wasn’t quite that old. But in fact, when I was very young the world was hit with a different epidemic, one I couldn’t comprehend at the time but which affected my . . .
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We stayed together like two voicestrying to find each other in the dark.She had an uncle like a father to herexcept when like a king he made herbow her head, and if he held itto his groin it was in a secret lifeshe kept from no one save herself. . . .—from . . .
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The pass through the mountains led into a narrow, serpentine ravine with dense forests of birch and poplar on both sides. A caravan of nine camels loaded with bridal dowry and accompanied by a couple dozen men and women on horseback slowly made its way along the rocky trail, now ascending steadily, . . .
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Photo: Selma High School students (l-r) Grady Broadnax, Fatima Salaam, Tad Bartlett, Jacinta Lake Thomas, and Malika Sanders Fortier, on the steps of the Selma Board of Education building, January 8, 1990. Patricia Cavanaugh McCarter, photographer. I was six when my family moved to Selma, Alabama, during the recession that closed . . .
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By the age of eight, I had heard all the horror stories about my father. I had heard the one about him literally putting his fist through a cop’s face. I had heard the one about him sending a badass Irish gangster into convulsions with a single jab. And who hadn’t heard . . .
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A Review of The Adventures of China Iron, by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, Translated by Fiona Mackintosh and Iona Macintyre (Charco Press, 2020) Back in February, the International Booker Prize, which recognizes the best novel translated into English published in the UK or Ireland, announced its longlist of novels competing for this year’s award. The . . .
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Donald Trump finds some stiff competition in the words of former presidents: “We hold these truths to be self-evident…” Thomas Jefferson“A house divided against itself cannot stand…” Abraham Lincoln.“Speak softly and carry a big stick…” Theodore Roosevelt“The only thing we have to fear…” Franklin Delano Roosevelt“The buck stops here…” Harry S. Truman“Ask . . .
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Melanerpes carolinus. Photo: Toni Herkalokoch, for the Audobon Society To capture a life in words is not possible, especially when words were—more than anything thing else—the very stuff of that life. It seems to me, then, that only one way could pass for close to adequate in remembering the journalist, translator, and . . .
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Through the window, the day probably looks less distant that it is, Sebastian decided. Or he himself wasn’t ready to interact with it. Ones step into a new day changes the course of time, he read once on a sign at the mall. For today he chose a T-shirt with blue and . . .
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