Search Results for: Iran

The Magical Stranger: A Son’s Journey Into His Father’s Life

Stephen Rodrick | The Magical Stranger | 2014 | 11 minutes (2,779 words)

Below is the first chapter from The Magical Stranger, Stephen Rodrick’s memoir about his father, squadron commander and Navy pilot Peter Rodrick. Our thanks to Rodrick for sharing it with the Longreads community. Read more…

The Top 5 Longreads of the Week

Photo: doug88888, Flickr

Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle users, you can also get them as a Readlist.

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How To Win a Million Dollars Writing Poetry in Abu Dhabi

As poetry readings go, the setting was unique. The Al Raha Beach Theatre in Abu Dhabi boasted light-up floors, backdrop projections and a light show of a kind that would be familiar to fans of Pop Idol, X Factor or America’s Got Talent.

Since February, global audiences of up to 70 million have tuned in to watch Million’s Poet, in which men (there were no female contestants this year) in traditional dress take turns to deliver self-penned verses of a type of colloquial Arabic poetry called Nabati. A panel of judges delivers feedback, the Emirati royal family puts in an occasional appearance, and the contestants are gradually whittled down.

If this format seems alien to the business of poetry, described by Wordsworth as “emotion recollected in tranquillity”, then the prize money may also give us pause for thought. When 27-year-old Saif al-Mansuri won the sixth season of the show last week, he took home five million UAE Dirhams – that’s $1.3m or £800,000. As literary prizes go, the only thing that comes close is the Nobel Prize for Literature, which stands at eight million Swedish kronor ($1.2m or £700,000).

All this raises questions about poetry and our preconceptions of poets. As Robert Graves put it, “There’s no money in poetry, but then there’s no poetry in money, either.”

William Kremer, writing for the BBC World Service. Kremer’s piece also explores the historical associations between poetry and poverty, and the stereotype of the starving artist, or “poet in the garret.”

Read the story here

More stories on poetry

Photo: Stan Dalone & Miran Rijavec, Flickr

Yes, All Women: A Reading List of Stories Written By Women

This week, a lot happened. A misogynist went on a violent rampage. #YesAllWomen took off on Twitter. Dr. Maya Angelou, feminist author and all-around genius (and don’t get me started on her doctor honorary), died at 86 years old. This week, I present a long list of essays, articles and interviews written by women. Many are about women, too. Some are lighthearted; others reflect on the events of the past week. I included a variety of subjects to honor those who might be triggered by the deadly violence of last week’s shooting, because women do not only write in the wake of tragedy—we write, we exist, for all time. So in this list there is reflection and humor; there are books and music and religion; there are all kinds of stories, fiction and non. Read what you need. Engage or escape.

1. “Summer in the City.” (Emma Aylor, May 2014)

Aylor, author of Twos, uses #YesAllWomen to write about about the sexual harassment she experienced as she researched her dissertation on the work of Wallace Stevens.

2. “In Relief of Silence and Burden.” (Roxane Gay, May 2014)

The author of An Untamed State and critically acclaimed badass gives her “testimony … so we can relieve ourselves of silence and burden” in the vein of #YesAllWomen, sharing stories of harassment, abuse and more.

3. “Not All Women: A Reflection on Being a Musician and Female.” (Allison Crutchfield, Impose Magazine, May 2014)

A wide range of female musicians react to a depressingly misogynistic article in Noisey about how to tour in a dude-dominated band. They share what they’ve learned on the road, emphasizing self-care, communication with bandmates, and doing what you need to do to feel safe and be your best self.

Read more…

Experiences of Black Americans: A Reading List

As a white woman, my role in conversations about race is to listen and learn. This week, I wanted to include pieces about empowerment, stereotypes and intersection in the realm of race. One reading list cannot encompass the vast array of experiences of black Americans; this is not meant to be exhaustive. Send me your suggestions, if you’d like. Or comment below.

1. “The Myth of the Absent Black Father.” (Tara Culp-Ressler, ThinkProgress, January 2014)

Black dads are indisputably present and involved in the lives of their children. Don’t believe the stereotypes spewed by the media, or insinuated by President Obama, or written in all caps on Facebook by your Tea Party neighbor.

2. “The Impossibility of the Good Black Mother.” (Tope Fadiran Charlton, Time Magazine, January 2014)

Charlton relates the struggles and stereotypes of being a young, black mother in predominantly white spaces: “The curiosity that strangers are so often eager to satisfy when they see me with my daughter is profoundly shaped by stereotypes of Black womanhood. Am I the babysitter? The nanny?”

3. “Growing Up Black in the Whitest City in America.” (Mitchell S. Jackson, Salon, March 2014)

Historically, Portland’s black population has not exceeded 5%. What this means, writes Jackson, is gang warfare inevitably claims the lives of people you know intimately.

4. “I Am, I Am, I Am: Writing While Black and Female.” (Vanessa Willoughby, The Toast, January 2014)

Willoughby slays in this wonderful piece about identifying as a black, female writer in a white-dude-dominated industry. She’s working on a novel, and if this incisive, insightful essay is any indicator, you won’t be able to miss her.

5. “Homeward Bound: Searching for the Island of Black Queer Mixed Femmes.” (Kim Katrin Crosby, Autostraddle, December 2013)

“I have always been a traveler, particularly as an immigrant and as a person with family hailing from Venezuela to Dominica to South India, ‘home’, ‘family’ and ‘belonging’ have always been complicated concepts. But as femme genius Yumi Tomsha says, we mixed folks are ‘layers, not fractions.’ These complications find their solace in my bones, my laugh, my irreverent queerness and my sensitive stomach without even trying.”

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Image from “The Residue Years” Documentary By Mitchell S. Jackson

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The Top 5 Longreads of the Week

Below, our favorite stories of the week. Kindle and Readmill users, you can also get them as a Readlist.

Sign up to receive this list free every Friday in your inbox.

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How We Survived Two Years of Hell As Hostages in Tehran

Longreads Pick

Three Americans recount their experience of being held captive in Iran’s Evin Prison after unknowingly crossing the Iraq-Iran border while out on a hike. An excerpt from A Sliver of Light, a co-written book about their ordeal:

SHANE (October 2009)

Solitary confinement is the slow erasure of who you thought you were. You think you are still you, but you have no real way of knowing. How can you know if you have no one to reflect you back to yourself? Would I know if I was going crazy? The longer I am alone, the more my mind slows. All I want to do is to forget about everything.

But I can’t do it. I am unable to keep my mind from being sharply focused on one task: forcing myself not to look at the wall behind me. I know that eventually, a tiny sliver of sunlight will spill in through the grated window and place a quarter-size dot on the wall. It’s ridiculous that I’m thinking about it this early. I’ve been awake only 10 minutes and I should know it will be hours before it appears.

They take everything from us—breezes, eye contact, human touch, the feeling of warm wet hands from washing a sink-load of dishes, the miracle of transforming thoughts into words on paper. They leave only the pause—those moments of waiting at bus stops, of cigarette breaks. They make time the object of our hatred.

I try not to look for the light.

Source: Mother Jones
Published: Mar 12, 2014
Length: 43 minutes (10,825 words)

The Bohemians: The San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature

Ben Tarnoff | The Bohemians, Penguin Press | March 2014 | 46 minutes (11,380 words)

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For our Longreads Member Pick, we’re thrilled to share the opening chapter of The Bohemians: Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature, the book by Ben Tarnoff, published by The Penguin Press. Read more…

The Missing American, on an Unapproved Mission for the CIA

Longreads Pick

An Associated Press investigation reveals that Robert Levinson, who disappeared in Iran and has become the longest-held American hostage, was working for the CIA at the time of his disappearance, despite denials by the U.S. government. The full story of how it all happened:

In an extraordinary breach of the most basic CIA rules, a team of analysts — with no authority to run spy operations — paid Levinson to gather intelligence from some of the world’s darkest corners. He vanished while investigating the Iranian government for the U.S.

Published: Dec 13, 2013
Length: 20 minutes (5,245 words)

How to Steal a House

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“They described what amounts to a methodical moneymaking scheme in which Setad obtains court orders under false pretenses to seize properties, and later pressures owners to buy them back or pay huge fees to recover them.

“‘The people who request the confiscation … introduce themselves as on the side of the Islamic Republic, and try to portray the person whose property they want confiscated as a bad person, someone who is against the revolution, someone who was tied to the old regime,’ said Hossein Raeesi, a human-rights attorney who practiced in Iran for 20 years and handled some property confiscation cases. ‘The atmosphere there is not fair.’

“Ross K. Reghabi, an Iranian lawyer in Beverly Hills, California, said the only hope to recover anything is to pay off well-connected agents in Iran. ‘By the time you pay off everybody, it comes to 50 percent’ of the property’s value, said Reghabi, who says he has handled 11 property confiscation cases involving Setad.”

A Reuters investigation into the Iranian supreme leader’s $95 billion economic empire, run through an organization called Setad, which makes some of its money by confiscating citizens’ property. Read more on Iran in the Longreads Archive.

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Photo: Wikimedia Commons

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