Laila Lalami

The inimitable George Saunders, whose The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil is out in the UK, describes his first visit in England, a place he finds somewhat confusing:

“One finds oneself longing for the simplicity of America, where, for example, everyone understands that New York City is a city, that Cleveland is a state in either Ohio or Indiana, and that the Mississippi River, I’m pretty sure, does not run in any state other than Mississippi. Or city. I can’t remember if Mississippi is a city or a … Anyway, the point is, the American visitor to Britain can avoid all confusion by simply referring to his hosts and hostesses as “you guys.”

More here.

There is a nice review of Faïza Guène’s Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow in the Sunday NYTBR. It might help if they’d spelled her name correctly. (It’s Guène, not Guèn.)

Turkish writer Elif Shafak, who has been charged with “insulting Turkishness” via the same law that had earlier been used againt Orhan Pamuk, is interviewed by Scott Simon over at NPR.

It’s one of those really bizarre coincidences that you’d never get away with in a work of fiction: This week, as bombs continue to fall on Beirut, Israel marked the 60th anniversary of the bombing of the King David Hotel, in Jerusalem. (If you don’t know about this attack, here is some background.) Back then, the attacks were described as the work of Jewish terrorists; now they are known as the work of Jewish freedom fighters, desperately trying to establish a homeland.

In Ha’aretz, Tom Segev reports on the work of an academic conference that was held at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center on the question of who is a terrorist and who is a freedom fighter:

It was quite a week to clarify such a question. They can be distinguished by organizational affiliation, goals, targets, means of combat and mode of operation. They all assume that a freedom fighter is a good person and a terrorist is a bad one. Nearly every terrorist defines himself as a freedom fighter, and vice versa: freedom fighters are usually defined as terrorists. So was Begin. He invested a lot of effort to convince history that he was not a terrorist. Among other things, he emphasized that his organization did not harm civilians. There’s a thesis that could serve as an historic lesson from a moral standpoint: not harming civilians. (…) Netanyahu spoke at the conference. The difference between a terrorist operation and a legitimate military action is expressed, he said, in the fact that the terrorists intend to harm civilians whereas legitimate combatants try to avoid that. According to that theory, the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier by a Palestinian organization is a legitimate military operation, and the bombing of Dresden, Hanoi, Haifa or Beirut is a war crime. Of course this is not what Netanyahu meant. He learned only this from the bombing of the hotel: that the Arabs are bad and we are good. Arab actions starting in 1920 and through the Iranian nuclear plan reflect, in his words, “a terrorist mentality.” Israel, on the other hand, only harms civilians by accident or when there is no alternative. For example, when terrorists hide among civilians.

The historic truth is different: In the 60 years since the attack at the King David Hotel, Israel has hurt some two million civilians, including 750,000 who lost their homes in 1948, another quarter million Palestinians who were forced to leave the West Bank in the Six-Day War and hundreds of thousands of Egyptian civilians who were expelled from the cities along the Suez Canal during the War of Attrition. And now tens of thousands of Lebanese villagers are being forced to abandon their homes, and air force pilots are once again bombing Beirut and other cities. Hundreds of civilians have been killed. Regrettably. It’s all in the spirit of the King David Hotel. One can always say there was a mishap.

You can read the entire piece here.

Thanks to Suzanne for the link.

Daniel Alarcón contributes a piece to the Washington Post‘s occasional “Writing Life” series. I was particularly interested in this passage, which describes the fear many immigrant or expat or exiled writers experience when their books come out in their countries of birth:

In a few months, my first book of stories, War by Candlelight — published last year in the United States — will be published in Peru. I’ve been looking forward to the Spanish version anxiously. It’s not just a matter of worrying about how the translation will sound; it’s deeper than that. My incomplete knowledge of the place will be on display before critics who are least likely to be forgiving. To be panned by an American reviewer would probably have more of an impact on my career, but similar treatment at the hands of Peruvian critics might do more spiritual damage. I’ve taken what I know about a place, written it in English, and now those people depicted in the stories will have their say. Exoticism will not color their understanding of the work, and the stories will be read on their own merits. These readers will not be seduced by a pretty sentence or a well-observed detail: They will know instantly if the book is true or not, whether I have added something of substance to the discussion of Peru’s national trauma or have simply plagiarized our suffering.

You can read the entire essay here. Authenticity (and not emotional truth) continues to be the question of the moment for writers of color. See, for instance, reactions to the film adaptation of Monica Ali’s Brick Lane.

They can scream terrorism all they want while they themselves terrorize civilians. The rest of the world does not believe them. This weekend, from places like Athens and Bern, Brazilia and Caracas, Los Angeles and Cairo, Lahore and London, Islamabad and Sydney, Seoul and Zurich, ordinary citizens came out to say, “No” to the Israeli war on Lebanese and Palestinians. Citizens the world over have had enough of Olmert, enough of Hizbollah, enough of Bush, enough, enough, enough.

From Sydney, Australia. Photo: AP/Mark Baker:

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Jami Attenberg, whose debut collection, Instant Love, came out last month, contributes a piece to Nextbook about discovering her Jewish roots, sometimes in the least expected places. Here’s a tidbit:

So off I went to college in Baltimore, where there were plenty of Jews—and I successfully ignored them. In fact, in all the cities I lived in over the years—from DC to Tampa to Seattle—I managed to ignore them, the other Jews, only stopping to think about my own Jewishness when someone else bothered to mention it. At one point I attended a Catholic wedding in San Diego, a wedding so white I was the token minority. Someone actually said to me, “I heard you were Jewish. Say something Jewish!”

Read it all here. And keep checking this site. I have a signed copy of Instant Love that I will be giving away at some point.

Bread Loaf, the nation’s oldest writers’ conference, will take place in Middlebury, Vermont from August 16th to the 27th. A listing of faculty and fellows is now available.

Beirut is being blown to smithereens, but Bush says it’s “a step to peace.” Truly, we have all been locked up in 1984, and someone’s thrown away the key.

Helen Thomas, the Dean of the White House Press Corps, who happens to be of Lebanese descent, has been referred to as a spokesperson for “Hezbollah” by Bush spokesperson Tony Snow (via). Last month, a Republican from Iowa referred to Thomas as the reward that awaits suicide bombers in hell. Nice folks they have in Washington.

Among the so-called “Hizbollah targets” that headlines keep telling us Israel has hit: power stations, gas stores, a water treatment plant, Beirut airport, 3 seaports, 38 main roads, 55 bridges, 2 hospitals, and a milk factory. What, you didn’t know Lebanese milk was liable to cause a terrorist attack? Well, now you know.

David Morley compares media coverage of the war from America, Europe, and the Arab world.

A University of Akron professor of geography, who holds dual Israeli and Canadian citizenship, has been detained without charge in Israel.

A demo against the war will be held in London this Saturday. Details here.

Over at The Nation, Adam Shatz examines possible motivations behind Hezbollah’s “Operation Truthful Promise” (a.k.a. the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers):

Since the 2000 Israeli withdrawal… Hezbollah has faced mounting pressure, from the West but also at home, to lay down its arms and become a purely political organization–a fate the party dreads, since it prides itself on being a vanguard of Islamic resistance to American and Israeli ambitions in the Middle East. This pressure dramatically intensified with UN Security Council resolution 1559 (2004), which called for the disbanding of all Lebanese militias, and with the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon last year. By conducting a raid that was likely to provoke a brutal Israeli reprisal, Nasrallah may have gambled that the fury of the Lebanese would soon turn from Hezbollah to the Jewish state, thereby providing a justification for “the national resistance” as Lebanon’s only deterrent against Israel. So far, Israel (with the full support of the Bush Administration) has played right into his hands, inflicting more than 300 casualties, nearly all of them civilians, and pounding the civilian infrastructure, eliciting sympathy for Hezbollah even among some Lebanese Christians.

Related: Shatz interviewed Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah a few years ago for an article, and he shares his thoughts with NPR’s Melissa Block here.