“How Does It Feel To Be a White Man?”: William Gardner Smith’s Exile in Paris
In 1951, the novelist Richard Wright explained his decision to settle in Paris after the war. “It is because I love freedom,” he wrote, in an essay titled “I Choose Exile,” “and I tell you frankly that there is more freedom in one square block of Paris than in the entire United States of America!”…
Welcome to Our Boutique, Where Nothing Is Called by Its Real Name
Welcome to our boutique! As the newest member of our “barter battalion,” which is what we call our staff, you and I have a few things to review. Over here is our candle, or “olfactory tickler,” display. All of our olfactory ticklers stay lit during store hours, giving our customers a unique and nauseating olfactory experience!…
Rosé Berries Have Arrived
Several years into the millennial-pink phenomenon, that tender queen-conch color still has us in its grip. Why? Thirty-five years ago, when the first millennials were being born, Ronald Regan declared that it was morning in America. Now that the sun is setting on all that, the pink moment feels consolatory, a wistful look from the…
After El Paso, Mexico Takes a New Approach to Trump
On Sunday evening, as U.S. authorities considered bringing hate-crime charges against the gunman who opened fire in El Paso, the Mexican Foreign Minister did not waver. At a press conference in Mexico City, Marcelo Ebrard spoke solemnly about the massacre, which took the lives of eight of his fellow-countrymen. “Mexico is indignant,” he said, adding,…
Toni Morrison, Remembered By Writers
On Monday, Toni Morrison died in New York, at the age of eighty-eight. In the days after, we asked writers to reflect on her life and on their experience of reading her work. This post will be continually updated. What I cherish most about Toni Morrison’s work is the way that she used the English…
“One Child Nation,” Reviewed: A Powerful Investigation of a Chinese Policy’s Personal Toll
Any investigative journalist could have pursued the story told in “One Child Nation,” a new documentary directed by Nanfu Wang and Jialing Zhang, about China’s former policy (in force from 1979 to 2015) of limiting families to a single child each. Indeed, they include one such daring and persistent journalist in the film. But for…
How the Trail of American White Supremacy Led to El Paso
A century ago this week, the city of Chicago, its air tinged with smoke, was conducting a body count. It had just endured eight days of arson and violence, which had claimed the lives of thirty-eight people—fifteen of them white, twenty-three of them black—including John Simpson, the sole police officer killed during the unrest. More…
“The Kitchen,” Reviewed: An Engrossing Mob-Wife Drama That’s Relegated to a Table Read
The financial crisis and crumbling morale of New York City in the late seventies is the backdrop to “The Kitchen,” a drama about three mob wives who, when their husbands are imprisoned, support themselves with gangster endeavors of their own. For all the movie’s dangerous conflict and physical violence, and despite the dramatic reconstruction of…
Is Ebola Evolving Into a More Deadly Virus?
This July, the World Health Organization declared that an outbreak of Ebola in the provinces of Ituri and North-Kivu, in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, was a “public health emergency of international concern.” This particular strain of the virus, which first appeared in the region in 2018 and hasn’t been given a formal…