Essays

It was about two o’clock in the afternoon, on a warm December day in 2013, when the sound of gunshots and frantic shouting abruptly woke Ambroise Andet from his midday nap. Startled, the 27-year-old propped himself up where he had been sleeping and looked around for his wheelchair.

I recently met Juan, a young man from Argentina with intellectual disabilities, who was told he was “uneducable” by teachers at the schools attended as a child.

At some point in our lives, we have all struggled with the wrongs or perceived wrongs that others have done to us. And being unable to forgive someone is not without its costs.

Extract:

Inventing Impressionism  – ” The National Gallery should have the integrity to give this exhibition an honest title, in recognition of the true nature of Durand-Ruel's accomplishment.

Last December, on the coldest night of the year, I trekked to the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and, literally shaking in my boots, searched for the Castor Gallery, a small, but important exhibition space.

It did not receive nearly the attention it should have.

Finally, to the chagrin of Tom Cotton and Israel hawks, and the delight of Iranians, who reportedly launched firecrackers into the Tehran sky last week, a deal on Iran's controversial nuclear program has emerged. I for one am relieved.

At the age of 50, Henry James created a detailed portrait of an experimental novelist in old age, in his story "The Middle Years." Terminally ill, the novelist Dencombe receives in the mail the published version of what he realizes will be his final work, a novel titled The Middle Years.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has a secret fascination with Leo Tolstoy.

Enough press attention has been given to the "religious freedom" laws in Indiana and Arkansas that there was initially little incentive to write more. That is, until conservatives reacted to opposition to the laws with an excess that is astonishing even for Fox News.

A Tale of Two Cities

Three decades and five thousand miles separate two photographs.

Pope Francis is poised, within the next two or three months, to announce one of the signature documents of his papacy, an encyclical on climate change. And we can hope and pray that it will be "world-changing" in the very best sense of that expression.

In my never-ending quest to become hip, cool and trendy -- and of course to feel younger and assuage the ravages of time -- I have subwayed to distant Williamsburg to eat at the latest bohemian restaurant, I have taxied to the Lower East Side to hear contemporary 

As the Middle East descends ever further into chaos, Rome suddenly finds itself in the crosshairs of Islamic State (IS).