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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Darth Vader’s taskmaster Admiral Piett, promoted under choking duress during the Star Wars Trilogy, bears an uncanny resemblance to a peculiar and unlikeable figure serving the current administration. See if you can tell them apart. That’s Piett in the Nazi-looking uniform. Miller, rhetoric notwithstanding, dresses a different part. But let’s go to the tapes. Here…
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Nope… Incredibly shrinking…
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Last week I took on the role of layout designer for a community literary magazine. It was a satisfying experience with a few lessons learned. The Job The challenge included formatting and organizing 120 pages of photos, art, poetry, and prose fiction and nonfiction between 50 and 1,500 words, in three languages and three different…
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Happy Publication Day to all the contributors at the American School of Bombay! Over 80 students, parents, teachers, and staff added their voice to the first issue of ASB Musings — a collection of reflections of the world through our eyes — to make it a spellbinding repository of poetry, short fiction, memoir, photographs, journalism, and…
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It’s our fourth week working for the Republic in exchange for no money. In these lean times ($0 income!) a few other jobs I can do for equal pay—but greater pleasure—have crossed my mind. These include: 10. Post reviews of my travels to TripAdvisor(dot)com 9. Polish tombstones at my local cemetery 8. Document…
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We call this project the Death Star. The Death Star is going up across from my flat. Just outside our bedroom window, as a matter of fact. Here’s an eyewitness account of how they build the Death Star: After fielding an unusual duty call at midnight last night, I returned to bed at 01:00, badly…
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End of last year I offered to help produce a school literary magazine, figuring I might be useful editing the 80 or so submissions. Yesterday I learned the organizers really need someone to pull the issue together, format it, give it that polished look. Why’d they turn to me? My inexperience coupled with their tight…
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Robert Frost’s great poem, outwardly a critique on a pre-existing wall, arguably has little to do with the hypothetical wall being proffered today. But Frost’s wall stands for so much more, and the critique applies more universally than merely to stone piled on stone. The critique can be said to include any barrier that divides…
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Earlier this week I climbed Pidurangala, a high cliff overlooking the forests around Sigiriya’s ancient ruins in central Sri Lanka. Painted numbers on a rough board indicated the climb would rise 628 steps, uneven and rough-hewn from wet stone. I counted hundreds more than that before reaching the Buddha in repose, just below the summit.…
Ben East Books 