Citizenship | Literature
Select novels, short stories, and nonfiction on contemporary life.
What began as a bold experiment in grassroots service produced future ambassadors to help guide U.S. diplomacy through seven decades of global upheaval.
Read, Listen, Watch
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Award-winning author reads from his short story Down on Jupiter. Who can resist Floridaman? Or rubber chickens? Or Marla Jean imagining her boyfriend’s back: “Tenderize me, baby.”
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Former diplomat Ben East tries his hand at podcasting when his nonfiction fails to take hold. Will fellow public servant Rob Batchelder bail him out? Can the Great Indian Bustard help?
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Ambassador White’s story, and the energy with which she told it, revealed the first, cleanest line from Peace Corps service to successful diplomacy
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Peace Corps taught Pamela White that learning English was no fun in Cameroon with Eurocentric texts filled with poodles. So she generated her own materials.
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Metrinko was cleaned up and brought to meet Tehran’s Friday prayer leader Ali Khamenei. In the room were a camera crew and the SFIL spokesperson, Niloufar Ebtekar
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Before enduring 444 days of captivity at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Michael Metrinko served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Turkey (1968-70) and Iran (1970-73).
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Afghan Finance Minister Ghani steeped Metrinko and Peace Corps Director Vasquez in nostalgia from his years learning English and basketball with PCVs in Kabul
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What Walter Kirn gets wrong about fascist protests: their cliches and tropes are all too easy to spot. Violence, racism, hate, tiki-torches, and insurrection.
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Limbert’s poise, broadcast in Iran and around the world, leveraged Khamenei’s own culture into a polite message discrediting those holding the Americans captive
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Even after 5 months as a hostage John Limbert retained his identity as a diplomat, engaging Iran’s future Supreme Leader in language and custom Khamenei couldn’t ignore
Ben East Books 