One still morning in a high, hushed village on that green island of cypress and pine, sun-beat oak and rock, from a rooftop whose loose tiles dislodge from my careless steps
I’ve fluttered around the edge of cliques, pressed my beak against the bars, not in envy, but out of interest, and for the little warm glow they give off.
The most common question posed to me by journalists—and my students for that matter—is always some version of, “Is it really still about losing the Civil War?” The “it” is always changing. Substitute segregated proms or voter ID regulations...
I remember this beach thirteen years ago, just after independence. East Timor had become the first new country of the twenty-first century, and Dili was its capital. Broken tiles littered the sand. A rusty sewing machine, car parts, bits of...
He hadn’t been back to this church since 2005, when he’d left his wife. “She was mean. She was spreading rumors, I don’t even know. She’d walk through church saying ‘mmmhmm, that one’s homosexual, yup, that one too.’ Because of how they...
