Earlier this year, Yale University Press published the excerpt below from The Orphanage by Serhiy Zhadan, translated from the Ukrainian by Reilly Costigan-Humes and Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler. We are revisiting this piece today to shed light on the continued and escalating tensions in the region. Recalling the brutal landscape of The Road and the
Joshua Cohen— The Swiss writer Ludwig Hohl (1904–1980) spent the bulk of his final decades—the decades during which he received his only acclaim—living poor in a Geneva basement strung with clotheslines, from which he hung his pages like laundry out to dry. He’d finish a page and then decide where
Sonallah Ibrahim— As Fathy pulled the seat belt across his chest he said, “Please fasten your seat belt or we’re doomed. Traffic cops here are tough, nothing like in your country.” I almost said that it wasn’t our country anymore, but I didn’t want to start off with an argument.
Lawrence M. Wills— The books of the Hebrew Bible were likely composed in the ninth through second centuries BCE, under a range of very different political conditions. Israel was established as a kingdom by David in about the year 1000 BCE, and his son, Solomon, ruled successfully for about forty
Desiree C. Bailey— I was once invited to write a poem based on photographs of self-presentation housed at the International Center for Photography. One photograph stood out to me perhaps because of the verdant background, or because the subject, whom I perceived as a young Black woman, reminded me of
Michael Pifer— Sometime in the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century, a Sufi poet named Sultan Valad was trying his hardest to get out of delivering a public sermon. He had just spoken before a private gathering of religious scholars while on a visit to the city of Kayseri, located
Tarleton Gillespie— Titled The Terror of War but more commonly known as “Napalm Girl,” the 1972 Pulitzer Prize–winning photo by Associated Press photographer Nick Ut is perhaps the most indelible depiction of the horrors of the Vietnam War. You’ve seen it. Several children run down a barren street fleeing a
Laura Forsberg— It is a truism, by this point, that smartphones have revolutionized our lives. In less than fifteen years, we have developed new ways of communicating with friends and family, navigating through traffic, finding information, and making purchases. Smartphones have become such an essential part of our lives that
Peter Burke— In Rome, unlike Greece, we find not only the praises of outstanding intellectual all-rounders but also recommendations to students of particular disciplines to acquire a wide knowledge, perhaps as an antidote to creeping specialization. Cicero (106–43 BC), one of the most eloquent public speakers of the Roman world,
Nathaniel Deutsch and Michael Casper— When the Yiddish-language Hasidic online chat forum Kave Shtibel (Coffee House) began a thread about our book, A Fortress in Brooklyn, less than two weeks after it was published in May, we were pleased but not surprised. The extensive Hasidic print culture that traditionally included