She Wants A Global Education Lords of Serendipity By Randy Boyagoda Mariner, 352 pages, $30 FIVE YEARS AGO, Devi, the only daughter in a rural, indigent Sri Lankan family and a principal figure in Randy Boyagoda’s “Lords of Serendipity,” made the finals of a spelling competition. Ever since, she has thought of nothing but attending a top uni- versity overseas. Devi has used many years’ worth of me…
A Wild West journey with a silver-ton Sebastian Barry’s novel bursts with dark emotions lyrically expressed. By John Self he Irish novelist Sebastian Barry has always been a charmer, on the page and off it. He writes novels that combine exquisite prose with an emotional payload. He delivers readings of his books with character and even sings relevant parts. “The bar is low, as you may have noticed…
When Francis Fukuyama has re-evaluated his thesis on democracy. By Ivan Krastev usan Sontag once observed that “great writers are either husbands or lovers”. Hus- bands, in her telling, are relia- ble, intelligible and decent. Lovers are moody, selfish, often unbear- able. Husbands clear your mind; lovers steer your imagination. The distinction works even better for political thinkers: ‘Habermas i…
بغداد -ابتهال العربي نظم منتدى الصيد الثقافي. حفل توقيع كتاب (فاضل معلة.. الصوت الوطني في مجل , النواب العراقي.. جذوره الاجتماعية ونشاطه السياسي 0 - 1979 ), من تأليف حميد حسون نهاي و عمار مزهر ريسان بحضور نخبة من الشخصيات الثقافية و لأكاديمية والباحثين و لكتاب. فيما أدار الجلسة رئيس مجلس إدارة نادي الحيد حسنين فاضل معلة. واستهل معلة الجلسة بالحديث عن (المسيرة السياسية لوالده. مشيدا يجهد المؤلفين ف…
The limits of emancipation Sebastian Barrys fictional life of a former slave in 19th-century America blazes with authenticity: By Max Liu reed not the same as free” is how Tennyson Bouguereau, the Black narrator of Sebas- tian Barrys 12th novel, describes his status in Amer- ica after the abolition of slavery. From his childhood in 1840s Tennessee, through the civil war and to the end of the 19th …
merican readers know the novelist Emma Cline as a prophet of women on the brink; a gifted storyteller whose provocative fictions about power and its perversions ignite charged conversations. Since publishing The Girls, her 2016 debut about a lonely teenage girl drawn into a Manson family-esque cult, she has been anointed an It-girl novelist. Now that Cline’s third novel has been longlisted for the…
The Hero Returns By Richard Brookhiser Yale, 248 pages, $30 By Apam Rowe HE 50TH ANNIVERSARY of the American Revolu- tion was the first of the great milestones to mark the success of this nation’s democratic experiment. To commemorate the event, one of its greatest heroes, Maj. Gen. Lafayette of the Continental Army, returned after an absence of more than 40 years for a grand tour of the country h…
BOOKS ‘My great ambition has always prevented me from doing anything.” —pawn poweLL The Coast of Bohemia By William Dean Howells (1893) Freedom—alluring, bewilder- ing—is the overarching theme of “The Coast of Bohemia.” . Ludlow and Cornelia are the —— lovers whom William Dean Howells brings together in a novel set amid the art schools, boarding- houses, drawing rooms and artists’ studios of late-…
A Foundational Question Frederick Douglass’s American Founding By Dennis C. Rasmussen Princeton, 216 pages, $27.95 Until the Last Yoke Is Broken By Bradley N. Rebeiro Harvard, 360 pages, $29.95 By Davip S. REYNOLDS S THE CONSTITUTION—the original one of 1787, before the later rights-extending amendments—pro-slavery or antislavery? The question was an urgent one to Amer- icans amid the rising tensi…
