Issues
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Spring 1988
Prague, Beirut, Des Moines, Derry, and the ugliest village in Essex. What is home for an Arab in Israel? Or for an exile returning to the Iowa county fair? Plus: Nicholas Shakespeare in Peru in search of the leader of the Shining Path, Abimael Guzman, and Ian Hamilton in pursuit of J.D. Salinger.
From this Issue
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Meeting Gorbachev
Václav Havel
‘By now the Glasnost Tsar has reached the spot where I am standing. He is rather short and stocky, a cuddly ball-like figure hemmed in by his gigantic bodyguards, giving the impression of someone shy and helpless.’
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Fat Girls in Des Moines
Bill Bryson
‘When I was growing up I used to think that the best thing about coming from Des Moines was that it meant you didn't come from anywhere else in Iowa. By Iowa standards, Des Moines is a Mecca of cosmopolitanism, a dynamic hub of wealth and education, where people wear three-piece suits and dark socks, often simultaneously.’
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The Retreat from Galilee
Anton Shammas
‘Our village is built on the ruins of the Crusader castle of Fassove, which was built on the ruins of Mifshata, the Jewish village that had been settled after the destruction of the Second Temple by a group of deviant priests, and which the villagers, as a sort of Jewish-Crusader compromise, called Fassu-ta.’
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A Guide to the City of Beirut
Fawwaz Traboulsi
‘In Beirut, a well reveals layer upon layer, generation after generation, of ruins.’
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Essex
Norman Lewis
‘Essex is the ugliest county. I only went there to be able to work in peace and quiet and get away from the settlers from London south of the river.’
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Feet
Seamus Deane
‘That was my first death. When the priest tossed the first three shovelfuls of clay on to the coffin, the clattering sound seemed to ring all over the hillside graveyard and my father's face moved sideways as if he had been struck.’
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Orion
Jeanette Winterson
‘Every 200,000 years or so, the individual stars within each constellation shift position. That is, they are shifting all the time, but more subtly than any tracker dog of ours can follow. One day, if the earth has not voluntarily opted out of the solar system, we will wake up to a new heaven whose dome will again confound us.’
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Among Chickens
Jonathan Miller
‘The joke makes us aware that we have complex notions about those things for which we can be praised and blamed, those things which could be said to be voluntary or involuntary, those things which we can do half-heartedly, those things which we do flat out and those things we can't help.’
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In Pursuit of Guzmán
Nicholas Shakespeare
‘They called him Presidente Gonzalo, but his name was Abimael Guzmán. I had come to Lima to find Guzmán, although I knew I wouldn't succeed.’
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J. D. Salinger versus Random House, Inc.
Ian Hamilton
‘In New York, Salinger was required to formalize his accusations. In his affidavit, he described himself as an “author of some renown” who had “elected, for personal reasons, to leave the public spotlight entirely”.’
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The Miracle at Ballinspittle
T. Coraghessan Boyle
‘This statue, alone among all the myriad three-foot-high snotgreen likenesses of the Virgin cast in plaster by Finbarr Finnegan & Sons, Cork City, was seen one grim March afternoon some years back to move its limbs ever so slightly, as if seized suddenly by the need of a good sinew-cracking stretch.’
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A Cock Fight
Charles Nicholl
‘And now, the night before the fight, with the moon high and nearing the full, came the final preparation: we were taking him to Auguste.’
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Cricket in Samoa
Gavin Young
‘Balls flew towards the beach or into dense jungle. Enthusiastic young fielders tumbled head over heels in the morning glories. Village elders, large, heavy-breasted, critical men, lay in the shade on cushions discussing the course of play like contented sea lions on their favourite rocks.’
