November 8th 2011
Pockets Still Empty, But Now They Are Deeper
The last time we had been in this part of Europe together was 23 years before, when we arrived in Italy as stateless refugees.
Boris Fishman
November 8th 2011
The Double
It started in the summer of 2008. The Multnomah County library in Portland, Ore., wanted me to return its Russian translation of Stephen Hunter’s thriller “Dirty White Boys.”
March 18th 2010
Dispatch: Northern New Mexico
“Fifth Sunday in a row,” the ski instructor in the blue staff jacket said, shaking his head and pointing at the fine powder descending peaceably all around us. “There’s 90 inches of snow at the top of that mountain.”
February 18th 2010
Trading Places
The mayor of a drill-town in Texas tries to persuade an economically battered corner of upstate New York with recently discovered gas reserves to stay away from drilling.
September 15th 2009
A Dirty Apron
After World War II, when my grandfather returned to Minsk, the capital of Soviet Belarus, his parents suggested he become an electrician. He refused and became a barber instead. “I wanted to work in a clean smock, not a dirty one,” he said. (Barbers in the Soviet Union wore smocks.)
July 16th 2009
Modern Love
Can a cat teach a self-absorbed guy about parenthood?
February 28th 2009
Homeward Bound
The son of an American film icon heads back to his father’s Siberia.
August 29th 2006
After Katrina
On 9/11 and during Hurricane Katrina, I had felt the empathy of a guest in America. Then I was assigned to edit the Senate’s official report on Katrina.
January 1st 2004
A Margin of Freedom
A dispatch from Iraqi Kurdistan six months after the American invasion, after being smuggled across the Turkish-Iraqi border. America was cozying up to some strange bedfellows.