And so it is that this immensely gifted Chinese writer performs his poetic acts of mourning for the entertainment of audiences in Berlin and New York—an exotic “dissident” abroad, his voice to be heard everywhere except where it is most needed. Ian Buruma’s New Yorker review of Liao Yiwu’s extraordinary prison memoir, For a Song and a Hundred Songs : A Poet’s Journey through a Chinese Prison.

8 authors on why they wrote the last chapter first.

Distinguishing between “lay” and “lie” thereby becomes a shibboleth; insiders are those we must take seriously, while outsiders can be summarily dismissed. The classist implications of grammar snobbery.