Explore Essays and memoir
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Abbottabad Pastoral
Humera Afridi
‘Until now, I had never experienced a disaster, or witnessed mass suffering and death close up.’
War’s Body
Rikki Ducornet
‘Born of genocide and slavery, our democracy staggers beneath a failure to acknowledge and address its own defining brutal impulse.’
Unplanned Road Trip
David Guterson
‘I had a dark, journalistic interest in Ground Zero but also, apprehension.’
To Stand in the Shadow
Samantha Smith
‘I orient myself in time with ‘before’ and ‘after’, using September 11 as a placemarker.’
War and Peace on the Big Sandy River
Dean H. King
‘Far from the canyons of lower Manhattan or the rugged peaks of Afghanistan, 9/11 led to an unexpected breakthrough in an ancient feud.’
The Other 9/11
Ariel Dorfman
‘Chile, for all its imperfections and failures, found a way of responding to the terror inflicted on us (yes, us, we Chileans), a path of peace rather than war, a path of understanding rather than retribution.’
Somalia Then and Now
Mary Harper
‘Madam, you are a potential terrorist. You and every other person in this room.’
In a Land of Silence
Janine di Giovanni
‘She tells me that he died because he refused to be silent.’
The Terminal Check
Pico Iyer
‘The world is all mixed up these days, and America can no longer claim immunity.’
The American Age, Iraq
Anthony Shadid
‘Nothing really escapes the detritus of death in this wreck of a city.’
Veterans of a Foreign War
Elliott Woods
‘If they’re willing to do this for their country then I should be willing to make the same sacrifices.’
Jihad Redux
Declan Walsh
‘American patience snapped, and Washington took matters into its own hands.’