Review
Anti-Capitalist Fables
Contemporary South Korean film and television present the capitalist system that emerged following the peninsula’s war over 70 years ago as fundamentally broken, generating class divisions that cannot be penetrated through perseverance or hard work. Their message is uniform: Either we destroy it, or it destroys us.
MAGA ABCs
The head of the FBI, Kash Patel, is also a children’s author. His “Plot Against the King Trilogy” is surprisingly revealing about the mindset and motivations of a man who now has the power to root out what he sees as America’s enemy within — the so-called “Deep State.”
How African Leaders’ Memoirs Rewrite History
Political memoirs can seem more like propaganda than honest reflection, raising questions about their authenticity and how they shape our understanding of history. That of former Nigerian military leader Ibrahim Babangida is no exception, highlighting its author’s achievements while downplaying his mistakes.
Sami Michael Broke New Ground by Centering Arabs in His Hebrew Novels
The novelist Sami Michael died last year aged 97. Born and raised in Baghdad, he introduced characters previously marginalized or omitted in Hebrew literature: immigrants, Mizrahim, women and especially Arabs. His portrayals are sympathetic but unsparing, and his writing tackled issues central to Israeli society that were previously cloaked in silence.
Contemporary Fiction’s Responses to a Changing India
In recent years, several contemporary Indian novelists have written in direct response to ongoing sociopolitical changes in India and painted an intricate picture of what it means to be young and disenchanted in a deeply polarized country.
One Hundred Years of Betrayal
The debate surrounding the Netflix adaptation of “One Hundred Years of Solitude” provides an opportunity to appreciate the novel’s artistry, Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s insights into the art of fiction, and the troubled path of his legacy over the decade since his death.
The Role of Thanksgiving in America’s Movies
Hollywood portrayals of Thanksgiving make it not only a symbol of shared identity but also a tracker of American cultural evolution, from postwar triumphalism to the fraying of social bonds and the decline of optimism in the 1990s.