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Why is One Hundred Years of Solitude Eternally Beloved?
Earlier this year I made my first visit to Colombia. During my stay, I became familiar with many of the emblems around which this wonderful nation’s image revolves. There is of course the coffee, some...
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To Catch the Conscience of the President: On the Power of Theater
Just days after I completed and submitted this column, an enormous controversy broke out over The Public Theater’s staging of William Shakespeare’s play, Julius Caesar, which dramatizes the...
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How the Witchcraft of Clarice Lispector Saved My Life
The story of a woman eating a cockroach—it may not sound like the most inspiring thing in the world, but this book saved my life. I worked for a corporation, and every day at lunch I would take this...
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On the Redemptive Generosity of Artistic Communities
Earlier this summer I interviewed my friend and colleague Daniel Hahn, who had just given away £12,500—roughly $16,500. That’s a lot of money, and Danny is not a wealthy man. He’s a literary...
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The Secret E-Book That Changed My Life
I’ve only purchased two ebooks in my whole life. I don’t like to do my reading on devices, and in fact I’ll do almost anything to avoid reading a book electronically. I love the feel of having a...
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American Xenophobia: Each Generation Must Write the Wrongs of History
Shortly before the birth of Christ, the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus took a moment to reflect on a practice that was still not very widespread in the Western world, yet one that he had concluded...
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How the Oldest Stories Can Give Us the Best Perspective
An oddly postmodern thing happens right near the beginning of Virgil’s ancient classic the Aeneid. Having fled Troy in defeat from the Greeks, and destined to found the great Roman civilization, a...
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Trapped in an Abusive Relationship with the United States of America
For several days after Stephen Paddock perpetuated the worst mass shooting in the history of the United States, I would start my morning off by crying. The tears would just well up from no particular...
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In California, Visions of Defiance and Grace
When I started this column a few weeks after Donald Trump had been elected our 45th President, I knew that something had gone drastically wrong with our politics, but I couldn’t then grasp how this...
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We Need the Lives of Others Now More Than Ever
I cannot tell you how much I depend on Tony Judt these days. When it came to 20th-century Europe, Judt was without peer. He illuminated the rise of fascism, the triumph of democracy, why the right took...
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