HARPER’S MAGAZINE, the oldest general interest monthly in America, explores the issues that drive our national conversation through such celebrated features as Readings, Annotation, and Findings, as well as the iconic Harper’s Index.
Port Authority Annie Murphy’s “The Day of the Sea” [Letter from La Paz, February] neglects to mention the Treaty of Peace and Friendship signed by Bolivia and Chile in 1904. This agreement normalized relations between the two countries twenty-one years after the War of the Pacific and provided Bolivia with some of the most favorable rights of transit of any nation in the world without a coast. Under the treaty, Chile allowed Bolivia “the widest and freest right of commercial transit through its territory and Pacific harbors.” This freedom remains. Eighty-one percent of the cargo transported through Arica, a Chilean port, is Bolivian. Bolivian trade through Chilean ports increased from 1.2 million tons in 2009 to nearly 3 million tons in 2013. For most Chileans, ceding territory would be akin…
Long years ago I gave pain by saying, with the arrogance of boyhood, that it was foolish to tell one’s dreams. I have done penance for that remark since. . . . I have cultivated, so far as I care to, my garden of dreams, and it scarcely seems to me that it is a large garden. Yet every path of it, I sometimes think, might lead at last to the heart of the universe. — Havelock Ellis I posed a question a few years ago to the readers of my website: do men and women both dream about interactions with famous or powerful people? The question was prompted by a dream I had about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran at the time, who was a big figure in…
In the immediate aftermath of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, police scanned the crowd for people who looked suspicious, which is to say Muslim, which is to say darker than Boston-white. A twenty-year-old student of English from Saudi Arabia named Abdulrahman Ali Alharbi was among the dozens of people with burns, scratches, and bruises who were making their way, with the assistance of uninjured runners, to the assembled ambulances. Alharbi had been walking to meet friends for lunch when he stopped for a glimpse of the marathon and was thrown by the second explosion. He had burn injuries on his head, back, and legs. He was covered in blood, most of it other people’s. A police officer directed him, along with other victims, toward the waiting ambulances—but when Alharbi boarded…
@KennethCole Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online @celebboutique #Aurora is trending, clearly about our Kim K inspired #Aurora dress ;) @Gap All impacted by #Sandy, stay safe! We’ll be doing lots of Gap.com shopping today. How about you? @Kmart Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims of this terrible tragedy. #PrayforNewtown #CTShooting #Fab15Toys @TiedtotheSouth Let’s get 2,296 retweets for the 2,296 people who lost their lives 13 years ago today. #9/11 #neverforget @newschannelnine Don’t worry, Dancing with the Stars will be back on after the special report. #Ferguson @epicurious In honor of Boston and New England, may we suggest: whole-grain cranberry scones!…
So that the best thing you could do, it seemed, was climb inside the machinethat was language and feel what it wanted or was capable of doing at any point, steering only occasionally. The best thing was to let language speak its piece while standing inside it—not like a knight in armor exactly, not like a mascot in a chicken suit. The best thing was to create in the reader or listener an uncertainty as to where the voice she heard was coming from so as to frighten her a little. Why should I want to frighten her?…
INTERVIEWER: Critics have praised your writing for its sincerity. How do you define sincerity in literature? Is it something you especially value? FERRANTE: As far as I’m concerned, it’s the torment and, at the same time, the engine of every literary project. The most urgent question for a writer may seem to be, What experiences do I have as my material, what experiences do I feel able to narrate? But that’s not right. The more pressing question is, What is the word, what is the rhythm of the sentence, what tone best suits the things I know? Without the right words, without long practice in putting them together, nothing comes out alive and true. It’s not enough to say, as we increasingly do, These events truly happened, it’s my real…
