Dear Randa
6 September 2009 Dear Randa, Given how busy you must be, I can’t imagine that you would have brought along with you Robert Fisk’s The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East. I…
Category: Journalists
Svetlana Alexievich: Fascinated by People
Svetlana Alexievich won the Nobel Prize for Literature last year. Her oral history, Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets, appeared this spring in the US. Translated by Bela Shayevich, the book is a compelling…
Dear Isabel (Letter/11)
Wednesday 1 July 2015 Dear Isabel End of page 12 and all of page 13 You WERE paralyzed with fear. Fear comes and goes. You can write anything you want. You can go outside the…
Dear Isabel (Letter/10)
The End of June 2015 Page 12, paragraph 1 Can you tell me the names of journalists you respect whose work you could also accurately describe as “Self-serving, theatrical, and soothing”? The part of you…
Dear Isabel (Letter/9)
Monday 29 June 2015 Dear Isabel Glad you had friends visiting over the weekend and that you now have a little more space for your daily practices and chill time/spaces. Page 11, paragraph 1 Don…
Dear Isabel (Letter/7)
Friday 26 June 2015 Dear Isabel Happy Friday, you’ve finished one week at the new job. Page 8, top paragraph I take back what I said yesterday about boycotting the word “solidarity.” That first sentence…
Dear Isabel (Letter/5)
Wednesday 24 June 2015 Dear Isabel Page 5 Ah, claridad in El Salvador, because it is (seems?) so black and white. Your description of what living there, amidst violence, gives you is powerful; e.g., “vulnerability is…
Dear Isabel (Letter/4)
Tuesday 23 June 2015 Dear Isabel Page 4, line 3 Have you, with all your white privilege, ever led the space of non-whites? Did you simply choose journalism because it made you feel special and…
Dear Isabel (Letter/3)
Monday 22 June 2015 Dear Isbaelita Page 3 This page inspires me to offer you the following writing topics to add to your comprehensive list, unless you’ve already exhausted each of them by writing at…
A Journalist/4
I regularly prowled the arms bazaars of the Middle East, seeking an answer to the same old questions. Who are the men who produce this vile equipment? How can they justify their trade? How will…