The Promise of Werfel’s Musa Dagh: Portraying Genocide in Fiction
How does a fictional account come to stand in for history?
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Posts Tagged: genocide
What It Means to Be a Human: Talking with Maggie Downs
Maggie Downs discusses her debut memoir, BRAVER THAN YOU THINK.
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On the Futility of Defying Extinction
Always, when my father spoke to me in words I could not understand, my guilt spoke back.
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Telling the Story of Now: A Conversation with Valeria Luiselli
Valeria Luiselli discusses her new novel, LOST CHILDREN ARCHIVE.
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These Places Surround Me: Talking with Quintan Ana Wikswo
Quintan Ana Wikswo discusses her novel, A Long Curving Scar Where the Heart Should Be, delving into the facets of trauma, and her creative processes.
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VISIBLE: Women Writers of Color: Brooke C. Obie
Brooke C. Obie discusses the historical basis for her debut novel, Book of Addis, writing to dismantle white supremacy, and why Black speculative fiction is integral to her survival.
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The Dark Heart of America: On David Grann’s Killers of the Flower Moon
David Grann’s new book Killers of the Flower Moon explores the 1920s murders of the Osage tribe, the making of the FBI, and is a reminder of the all too recent history of betrayals that comprise America’s dark heart.
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The Rumpus Interview with Monica Sok
Monica Sok discusses her award-winning poetry chapbook Year Zero, her interest in Southeast Asian history, and living in isolation.
...moreThe End of the Road
At The Establishment, Anne Theriault recounts driving out West to see the house of her childhood heroine Laura Ingalls, and what it taught her about the horrific underpinnings of the American Dream: And then we passed a mural with a confederate flag and I felt that hot prickle of shame and fear—fear because of what […]
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Used to Be Schwartz
When I told my friend Aharon that my family name used to be Schwartz, he said, “Used to be Schwartz—sounds like a Borscht Belt act.”
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The Saturday Rumpus Review: Star Wars: The Force Awakens
However, it’s taken me too long to say: The Force Awakens really is a fun and breathtaking movie
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The Rumpus Interview with Meline Toumani
Meline Toumani discusses her debut, There Was and There Was Not, the rewards and risks of writing a political memoir, and what it means to approach a divided past and future.
...moreAn Anthem for Black Lives Matter
Kendrick Lamar has paired with Dr. Dre to make what may be the #BlackLivesMatter anthem we’ve all been waiting for. On Compton, Dre’s controversial soundtrack to the upcoming N.W.A. biopic Straight Outta Compton, the track “Genocide” says in its chorus: “It’s Murder / It’s Murder / Call 911, Emergency / Hands up in the air […]
...moreWhat Do You Want Me To Do, Cry?
It’s strange, how you go from a being person who is away from home to a person with no home at all. The country that is supposed to want you has pushed you out. No other country takes you in. You are unwanted, by everyone. You are a refugee. One day when we were walking […]
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The Rumpus Interview with Morris Ratner
Trailblazing lawyer and professor Morris Ratner speaks to the Rumpus about the historic lawsuits against banks that profited from the Holocaust.
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Visiting Auschwitz
Like most Jewish girls, I read The Diary of Anne Frank at a young age. From the moment I closed the book, the Shoah dominated the mental landscape of my nine-year-old days and commandeered my nights.
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Round Trip
Thinking my grandfather was from here deepened my experience of Plovdiv. I felt closer to the city, to the people, and to my own family.
...moreOn Genocide
In an interview at The Browser, historian Norman Naimark reviews the definition of genocide and argues that it is “part of the human condition.” Commenting on five key books about the subject, Naimark speculates on history’s earliest genocide, the potential of future ones, and patterns that genocides have displayed over time. “If societies stayed out […]
...moreA Funny Book About Genocide
“I’d been thinking about writing a book on genocide for some time, but the project really kicked off about a year-and-a-half ago, around the time my wife told me she was pregnant with our second child. Naturally, I thought about the Holocaust. It wasn’t a morbid thought, or at least it didn’t seem so to […]
...moreSunday Political Links
Hi all, I’ll be out the next few weeks to finish up school, but I’ll return in the New Year. In the meantime, Michael Berger will be taking over for me on Sundays. He’s a good guy, that Michael Berger. Erik Prince, “head of Blackwater” and “a participant in the C.I.A. assassination program,” is still […]
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