Garth Greenwell, the author of What Belongs to You, a novel about gay life and the experience of cruising in Bulgaria, said in an interview with The Guardian: “You build bridges across difference to arrive at the universal through describing the particular.” The bridge between the particular and the universal, in literature, is built with… more
Colombians have been living through war for more than fifty years. In a conflict primarily between the state and a leftist insurgency, the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), other various antagonists (paramilitary forces, competing leftist guerrilla groups, and narco-armies) have complicated and bloodied the picture: over 220,000 people have been killed—80 percent of them… more
Quick test: Point to Brunei on a map. Do you know where it is? Do you know what it is? Is it the capital of a Middle Eastern country? A Balkan enclave? An Asian province? The answer: None of the above. Officially the Nation of Brunei, Abode of Peace, the country is a small Islamic… more
In 2012, when I was ordered out of Mexico for over-extending a student visa, I took a quick trip to Guatemala, flashed my United States of America passport at a guard, paid a one-peso fee, and clacked through a turnstile. In the shadow of the bridge I had just walked over, inner tube rafts loaded… more
