Berfrois

July 2015

“J.M. Coetzee”

“J.M. Coetzee”

On 21 December, 2012, I had the privilege of introducing J.M. Coetzee to an expectant audience at the University of Cape Town; he was about to read from his new, as yet unpublished work, The Childhood of Jesus.

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portisheadspace

portisheadspace

Unless you're extremely married, I bet you can find two particular kinds of message in your email: the last sent to you before you finally slept with your correspondent, and the first sent afterward.

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Kamel Daoud’s Inner Vigilance by Suzanne Ruta

Kamel Daoud’s Inner Vigilance by Suzanne Ruta

George W. Bush read The Stranger during his second term in office, at the urging of historian Alexander Horne, whose Algerian war classic, A Savage War of Peace, Bush had also read, we were told. Algeria as a key to understanding Iraq? As if Arabs or “Arabs” were interchangeable?...

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Was Napoleon the true progenitor of the European Union?

Was Napoleon the true progenitor of the European Union?

In the spring of 1812, on the eve of commanding more than 600,000 soldiers to invade Russia, Napoleon Bonaparte laid out his plans for the future of Europe.

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