Literature & Power: Writing about Politics, with John Ralston Saul, Oksana Zabuzhko, Shashi Tharoor, Tomás Eloy Martinez, Francine Prose, and Bernard-Henri Levy
When I first read the title of our panel, what immediately came to mind was an episode from the last day of the Ukrainian Orange Revolution. Those of you… More
Reinventing Home
MICHAEL ONDAATJE: In Purple Hibiscus, on the acknowledgments page at the end, there’s a wonderful sense of community—I almost want you to read that because it feels like part… More
Confronting the Worse: Writing & Catastrophe
I have been a roaming correspondent in Africa, Asia, and Latin America for a long time, have seen many catastrophes, and have often had to write about them. There… More
Confronting the Worst: Writing & Catastrophe
I’m not somebody who, like a combat photographer, stands up when there’s shooting to get a better picture. I wait until it’s just calm enough perhaps to have a… More
To Change the World
Though I never met James Baldwin in person, and never even saw him at a public event, he is nonetheless to me like a father, or a beloved uncle,… More
Confronting the Worst: Writing & Catastrophe
Listen.I’d like to remember the great Chekhov and his play Three Sisters. The main character in that play says over and over, “Now life is terrible, we live in… More
Quixote at 400
But what is the symbolic connection between madness and modernity? Why should modern man end up recognizing himself in the words of a lunatic? More
Quixote at 400: Margaret Atwood
The small, buried, dead books have given rise to huge living books and as we watch, the covers of the books open and some of the characters of Don… More
The Way We Love Now: Antoine Audouard
“The way we love now.” I mean, who is “we”? Emily Dickinson: “That love is all there is, is all we know of love.” Okay? That pretty well does… More
The Way We Love Now: Meir Shalev
When we talk about love, it’s part of an international conspiracy: Writers know something about love that readers do not. The same way rabbis and priests and imams know… More