On Translating Matieu Caragiale
One of the central texts of Romanian literature, its singular, impossibly ornate Romanian weds so well to its decadent subject that asking the work to embrace English seems a… More
On Translating Zou Jingzhi
‘Nine Buildings’ works through what he [Zou] witnessed and suffered as a child and young man, all the while retaining his customary spare, elegant prose and detached vision. More
On Translating Anna Piwkowska
t is easy to identify with Piwkowska’s poetry, but it is also easy to become enthralled by the incantatory rhythms, to want to stay forever in her world of… More
Solitary Confinement in California
Most people will never experience, and never really know what it is like to be isolated for many uninterrupted years. But it's like being locked in a trunk of… More
Murder is Murder
Murder is typically a desperate crime committed by desperate people who typically don’t think or care about the punishment options they might face if they are caught. More
Prison Diary
How can I communicate what it is like to get arrested when you have one four month old daughter and a second daughter on the way, and then be… More
When the King Saved God
Abraham Lincoln lay dying in a room full of educated and literate men, in the age of the wireless telegraph, and not far from the offices of several newspapers,… More
Alibis: Essays on Elsewhere
I did not even know whether the perfume was my reason for being in there or whether it had become an excuse, the mask behind the mask, because if… More
The Stew of Discontent
Part of the perennial problem with the Texas prison system stems from an inherent comprehension deficit. To use an idea of Alexander Solzhenitsynts, it seems we’ve lost capacity for… More
Illinois Abolishes the Death Penalty
The governor of Maryland, Martin O’Malley, argued in 2007 that the money could be better spent on providing drug treatment or extra police, which actually prevent crime. Such an… More