“In those days, you didn't mix. Blacks went with blacks, mulattos with mulattos, white Creoles went their own way, and the Good Lord was happy in his heaven.”

—from Maryse Condé's “The Brownest Eye”

 

TRANSITION 89: Table of Contents

 

DISPATCHES____________________

Flight Club
For one impressionable boy, coming of age in India meant falling in love with Cuba: the exotic sounds of Xavier Cugat, the pugilistic prowess of Teófilo Stevenson, and the rhetorical bombast of Fidel Castro. Today, Cuba is a land of salsa socialism—and Pakistani immigrants. Naresh Fernandes chases after his heroes in Havana.

The Lion Sleeps Tonight
What happens to a dictator deposed? For Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam, life after tyranny has been quiet: the Ethiopian Stalin hides out in a modest house in Zimbabwe, where his best friend is the telephone. Riccardo Orizio uncovers an incognito autocrat.

Splitting the Difference
The no-man's-land between India and Pakistan is one of the most talked about places on the subcontinent. It's a bustling tourist destination, a training ground for soldiers, and the final resting place of a literary hero. There's only one problem: it doesn't exist. Amitava Kumar walks the line.

MEMOIR____________________

The Brownest Eye
A picture torn out of Ebony. A lover she'd never met. And parents who were proud to be black—but prouder still to be French. Maryse Condé collects fragments of her girlhood in Guadeloupe.

POSITION____________________

We Invented the Holocaust!
Genocide means always having to say you're sorry. And Germany has made an art form of expiation with a slew of books, monuments, and days of observance. But there's a fine line between self-flagellation and self-aggrandizement. Henryk Broder limns a national obsession.

UNDER REVIEW____________________

One More Time
In his extraordinary ninety-five years, W. E. B. Du Bois invented black studies, revolutionized black politics, and reinvigorated American letters. But it now appears that the sword was mightier than the pen: Du Bois's catalogue of sexual conquests puts even his bibliography to shame. Brent Hayes Edwards reconsiders the race man as ladies' man.

FICTION____________________

The Raw Man
Of sticks and stones.
By George Makana Clark

Reading
Was it the books?
By V. K. Mina

CONVERSATION____________________

Things Fall Together
Chinua Achebe fell in love with the English language early on: it stood for literature, learning, and a united Nigeria. But for Toni Morrison, English was a challenge—a bundle of contradictions, at once inviting and exclusive. Both have lived to transform the language that transformed them. Leon Botstein moderates a historic encounter.

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