Full Harvest Full Harvest
And it seemed it was time for us to die somehow, right now, this afternoon, but the apples were abundant that year and ripened before autumn really showed what it was made of. Even the water shoots arced into branches. And now the sun is happily drinking water from the puddle at the gate and from the burdock -sized leaves of the lilac, but it's not warm enough for that, the day smacks of humidity. Again the magpie chatters in its own way, and old friends, one after another, will deny us, and we would be the last to want to hinder them, but neither to overlook this, because then how would the others cope, left high and dry, without a word from us. (Translated from the Polish by Christian Hawkey and W. Martin)
Nov 24, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Piotr Sommer
Founding Another Colony Founding Another Colony
And the news will have to be tailored to their needs with baffling opinion polls, announcements of the number of steps at the ballerina's dress rehearsal, rarefied shots of Antarctic snow, cascades in the Andes the backwash of shivering butterfly wings no breaks in transmission no voice-overs while regular slots play truant; no controllers in sight and no authorization. You'd think not dying was a la mode. With an almost creepy unconcern they'll form columns and perform exploits beyond every map and outside every schedule. (Translated from the Polish by Rod Mengham)
Nov 24, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Andrzej Sosnowski
Founding a Colony Founding a Colony
Pill boxes, patrols, protocols: this is what made the locals come running, so nothing should be disturbed. Softly, softly, we thought. That graveyard needs moving further south: chop it up among urban allotments, carve out wide boulevards and tunnels, erect viaducts, excavate canals, launch speedboats, ferries, hovercrafts and junk the heritable past; let the map heave with bulldozer silhouettes, he said (lighting a corner of the map) for this shall be our theater of war. And then what? Unlock the fog. At twilight only a boy's quick laugh in a blind back alley shall echo that time shift of desire all lost in space beyond their dreams. (Translated from the Polish by Rod Mengham)
Nov 24, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Andrzej Sosnowski
Travels by Taxi: Reflections on Cuba Travels by Taxi: Reflections on Cuba
A Cuban novelist reflects on the consequences of his country's revolution.
Nov 23, 2009 / Books & the Arts / José Manuel Prieto
Across the Great Divide: David Finkel’s Iraq Across the Great Divide: David Finkel’s Iraq
Against the background of the surge, David Finkel twists the concept of wartime good into a cosmic joke.
Nov 19, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Akiva Gottlieb
Missed Chances Missed Chances
Stephen F. Cohen's Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives surveys a political landscape of reform, struggle and reconciliation.
Nov 19, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Jochen Hellbeck
This Seeming Brow of Justice This Seeming Brow of Justice
In their discussions of justice, Michael Sandel and Amartya Sen endorse communal good but slight collective endeavor.
Nov 19, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Samuel Moyn
Evicted From His Own Head: On Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky Evicted From His Own Head: On Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky
In the stories of Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, the landscape of the Russian revolution is hostile territory, and terrifying in its scope.
Nov 11, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Elaine Blair
Back Talk: Amy Bach Back Talk: Amy Bach
A conversation with the author of Ordinary Injustice about why the right to trial is no protection against a shoddy legal system.
Nov 11, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Christine Smallwood
The Misunderstood Robber Baron: On Cornelius Vanderbilt The Misunderstood Robber Baron: On Cornelius Vanderbilt
T.J. Stiles's The First Tycoon is a gilded portrait of the robber baron Cornelius Vanderbilt.
Nov 11, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Steve Fraser