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Scorched Maps

Scorched MapsI took a trip to Ukraine. It was June.I waded in the fields, all full of dustand pollen in the air. I searched, but thoseI loved had disappeared… More

The Flood Notebooks

This is another summer of the VanishingA summer of the country turning from more loss. Switch off the TV, power down the computer, stop the conversation.Everyone is tired of… More

Book Groups Launch New Effort to Amend Patriot Act

Organizations representing booksellers, librarians, publishers, and writers today launched the latest phase in their five-year campaign to restore the reader privacy safeguards that were stripped away by the USA… More

On Fear

I think FDR had it right, as he did so many things, that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—the fear of participating fully in our… More

Seven Small Apocalypses

Night and DayI drive by a motel when I need anything from the other side of town. Town’s built like an hourglass, and there’s a big lit sun shining… More

Rosie’s Bridegroom

The wedding guests look upon the cracked, pink lips of Rosie’s bridegroom. They look at Rosie’s own lips, which owe their reddish pinkness to artifice, they think, and not… More

Revolution et literature

I spotted Professor Youssef sitting at his usual table. That lazy, pretentious, Algerian pseudo-French intellectual always dresses up in gabardine suits with the same thin tie that had its… More

Health Concerns for Jailed Writers

International PEN continues to be alarmed by the large number of detained writers in China suffering from serious illnesses and lack of appropriate medical care. More