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Explore Essays and memoir

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.’

Of Moustaches and Megalomaniacs

Alia Malek

‘Proper syllabic emphasis was mere collateral damage in the war crescendo of the global coalition that would eventually rumble with Iraq.’

Today is a Sunny Day

Porochista Khakpour

‘For the past ten years I have been trying to write about the events that occurred on 9/11.’