Citizenship | Literature
Select novels, short stories, and nonfiction on contemporary life.
Ben East’s nonfiction debut recounts how JFK’s bold experiment shaped diplomatic careers and influenced modern American diplomacy.
Read, Listen, Watch
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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.…
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We greeted the New Year from a treehouse in old Ceylon. We rode the waves at Midigama and Weligama in Southern Serendib. We climbed to Buddha’s retreat at Pidurangula and looked out over forests surrounding the ancient ruins of Sigiriya. In Kandy, we spied the room housing the casket that holds the dagobas wherein rests…
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This next episode from life at the Bureau of Government Intelligence and Execution—aka BOGIE—introduces the Bureau of Administration, Management, and Facilities. DC may shut its doors on the public workers who serve the Republic. But that can’t stop the mofos in BAMF from installing new ones to protect its workers from America’s next shooting rampage. Also…
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Shutdown 2018 continues unabated, and so do excerpts from life at the government’s Bureau of Government Intelligence and Execution—better known as BOGIE. What happens when DC’s ‘Fed Buffet’ closes its doors—and its payroll—on the public servants who work to prevent America’s next tragedy? Furloughed, you say? Is this what you signed up for? “How do you arrive at…
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Week one of Government Shutdown 2018 comes to an end, bringing to mind the plot of Patchworks. So why not run a few excerpts from Chapter 12, in which DC’s ‘Fed Buffet’ closes its doors—and its payroll—on a mix of kindly public servants who only wanted to prevent the next great American tragedy. Government intern…
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Revisiting publication credits to stimulate and inspire 2019 projects. I’d like to make it a year of broader platforms with more non-fiction. The days ahead, if the Grinches in DC keep Grinching, might provide both the means and the need to fulfill that prospect. Non-fiction The Card from Kabul—The Foreign Service Journal May 2018 Transition Brief…
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All that is left today is to recall those friends who lost their lives, and those who survive with wounds—scars both physical and emotional. In 2004 five zealots attacked our consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. These men left for paradise: Imad, who several times took me in hand, a guide through the complicated process of…
Ben East Books 