Imagining the Enemy
Chris Pawluk
This series of articles explores fiction's potential as a tool of social and political analysis in today's complex world. This series is supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Justify the Enemy
Becoming Human in South Africa
Zakes Mda
"It was not difficult to find humanity in those I found politically or morally reprehensible. When we black children of South Africa were growing up, we were taught by our parents, but especially by our grandparents, that we were not fully human until someone made us human."
The Mirror
Imaging Justice in Palestine
Elias Khoury
"In the long Palestinian-Israeli struggle over the land of Palestine - a struggle shaped almost entirely by violence and suffering - the use of the multiple meanings of two languages from a single linguistic family puts the problem of misunderstanding at the core of the portrayal of identity, of both self and other."
The End of Sexual Identity
Fiction's New Terrain
Stacey D'Erasmo
"In art, the sturdy house of the novel of sexual identity, with its secret passageways and walk-in/walk-out closets and tempting garden paths and labyrinths, lies in ruins. We don’t really care who enters or leaves it; we pretty much know what goes on inside; we are not trying to peep through the windows."
Intimate Revenge
Writing the Troubles
Roger Boylan
"In the Irish soul, yesterday is tomorrow, and it will be no surprise to me if the wild men return - and with them, more lovely laments, more bitter books, more art from war."
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POOR REASON
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APOCALYPSE
by Junot Díaz
