Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Et Alia
To hear the big fellows talk, they wage war from fear of God and for all things bright and beautiful, but just look into it, and you’ll see they’re not so silly: they want a…
Category: World Literature
To My Friends by Primo Levi
Dear friends, and here I say friends the broad sense of the word: Wife, sister, associates, relatives, Schoolmates of both sexes, People seen only once Or frequented all my life; Provided that between us, for…
Lineage
From Markel to Zinovy From Zinovy to Alyosha From Alyosha to Kolya From Kolya to Cab From Cab to me From me to Eileen From Eileen to Adah From Adah to a world filled with…
Scintillating Promises (The Joys of Reading and Writing/Reinaldo Arenas)
Reading Reinaldo Areas’ novel The Color of Summer was a breakthrough experience for me. From him (and Eduardo Galeano) I figured out how to structure what eventually became The Book of Mev. The following are some passages I love from his Before…
Share the Wealth with Johannes Wich-Schwarz: German-Jewish Poetry after the Holocaust
“The Not-Word: German-Jewish Poetry after the Holocaust” What does it mean to write in German as a Jewish author after the Holocaust? Can poetry recover, reclaim, and renew language after unspeakable trauma? How do we…
Shema, Primo Levi
You who live secure In your warm houses Who return at evening to find Hot food and friendly faces: Consider whether this is a man, Who labours in the mud Who knows no peace Who…
Would You Say Something About Old Age by Nicanor Parra
WOULD YOU SAY SOMETHING ABOUT OLD AGE His students once asked Of Dr. Bertrand Russell & the venerable elder replied: Old age… A time like any other For fighting for a cause that’s just –Chliean…
We Inter-Are
“What is one’s personality, detached from that of the friends with whom fate happens to have linked one? I cannot think of myself apart from the influence of the two or three greatest friendships of…
A Doctor and a Child: Christmas Eve in Managua
Fernando Silva ran the children’s hospital in Managua. On Christmas Eve, he worked late into the night. Firecrackers were exploding and fireworks lit up the sky when Fernando decided it was time to leave. They…
Contemporaries
“Who are my contemporaries?” Juan Gelman asks himself. Juan says that sometimes he comes across [people] who smell of fear, in Buenos Aires, Paris, or anywhere in the world, and feels that these [people] are…