The Self-Deceptions of Empire
David Bromwich is finalist for the 2015 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay for the collection Moral Imagination, which explores the importance of imagination and sympathy in… More
The Empathy Exams
The title essay of Leslie Jamison's The Empathy Exams, a finalist for the 2015 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. More
The Twisted Art of Documentary
Read an essay from Ian Buruma's Theater of Cruelty, winner of the 2015 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. More
Excerpt from “Travels With Ramazan”
From outside my guide Amir and I could hear the tock of Ramazan’s weaver’s shuttle, the loud noise of metal slamming against wood, as we approached his studio in… More
Return to Sender
The first sentence stopped me cold: “When the assassins come they kill everyone.” More
Burning is Banning: On the Qur’an
At this very moment, somebody somewhere in the United States is trying, in some way or other—be it by burning, be it by banning—to censor the Qur’an. At this… More
from Nine Buildings
Yao Nan said, every year we come to grave-sweeping time, and only then does it feel like spring. He could never understand why we’d wait for springtime, when flowers… More
France, story of a childhood
I am a girl. I have two obedient sisters, six brothers, and a father who blames me for being born. More
On Translating Zahia Rahmani
When I first discovered Rahmani’s work in 2009, I was ignorant of the Harki identity—I had never even heard the term. Gripped by the author’s sense of urgency… 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
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