Brief Encounters

From Wars Abroad, to Peace at Home

“As I’ve grown older, I’m more aware of the psychological risks we must take,” says the conflict-zone reporter. “Writing about my father represented such a psychological risk.”

February 27, 2021

Of Angels, Saints, and Faith in Fiction

“I am interested in metaphor, that is where I get my fix of transcendence,” says the novelist.

February 20, 2021

Decolonizing the Museum

“We thought when we began that the performance would be understood as a parody,” says the interdisciplinary artist and writer.

February 6, 2021

A Career in Counter-programming

“Every situation is different, but the forms of injustice rhyme,” says the leading Jewish-American journalist.

January 30, 2021

The National Security Counselor

“Entrenched constraints would have been damn useful in preventing Trump from heedlessly tearing down the US-led postwar liberal order.”

January 16, 2021

Chronicler of a World on the Move

“Despite the immense amount of violence and loss I have witnessed, I remain interested in the miracle of survival, in what keeps us going.”

January 9, 2021

Desperately Not Seeking Susan

“The strong feelings about Sontag were exactly what I dreaded when I was first asked to do the biography. If I’d cared too much about that, I couldn’t have written it.”

January 2, 2021

The Advocate—for All India’s Citizens

“At the heart of it, lawyers are storytellers,” says the leading constitutional and civil rights litigator.

December 19, 2020

The Long Afterlife of the KGB

“The last time I was in Moscow, I was well aware that I was being watched wherever I went.”

December 5, 2020

On Race and Property in the South

“There is just something about the robustness of Black cultural institutions and networks in the South that can’t be matched elsewhere.”

November 28, 2020