Escape from a Maximum Security Jail
Los Angeles County has the largest jail system in the world. Their maximum security unit, Highpower, is reserved for the most dangerous, notorious and high risk inmates. Highpowers are… More
Things Come Together, Things Fall Apart
Turning and turning in the widening gyreThe falcon cannot hear the falconer;Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and… More
“What Happened to the Baby?”
When I was a child, I was often taken to meetings of my Uncle Simon’s society, the League for a Unified Humanity. These meetings, my mother admitted, were not… More
Public Lives/Private Lives
American EyesEvery day as a child I looked at a yellow box of American cereal while I enjoyed my breakfast at an American kitchen table at my home, in… More
Public Lives/Private Lives
Village RumorsA few weeks ago, the phone rang at 11:45 p.m. in my home in Amsterdam. It was my friend Vincent, who’s been living in Sweden since he fled… More
Public Lives/Private Lives
I spent my childhood in socialist Romania. In 1983 I learned that the two most dangerous objects in our household were my father's air-gun and his typewriter. A presidential… More
Public Lives/Private Lives
I believe that one of the most problematic and fascinating conflicts of our time is the relationship between our intimate beliefs and our public life.How do our convictions give… More
Clean Sheets
Prolific Dutch novelist and journalist Arnon Grunberg (Amsterdam, 1971) has done many things: win the same first-novel prize for a second time (pseudonymously as Marek van der Jagt), publish… More
Realist Fiction
Last night, in a biker bar, I overheard two men discussing what distinguished “realist” fiction from more “experimental” work. Although one shouldn’t generalize, I never expect bikers to be… More
Support for the freedom to read with exclusive designs by Todd Parr, Mike Curato, Art Spiegelman, and more!
