Corretta Scott King

At our last death penalty vigil, held on Martin Luther King Day, we put the following quote on the front page of the program:

"As one whose husband and mother-in-law have died the victims of murder and assassination, I stand firmly and unequivocally opposed to the death penalty for those convicted of capital offenses, an evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed of retaliation. Justice is never advanced in the taking of a human life. Morality is never upheld by a legalized murder." -- Corretta Scott King

The human rights movement has lost a great friend. Suggestions for celebrating her life: take action on our current death penalty case or read a book to a child.

For April: Austerlitz

For April we have chosen W.G. Sebald's Austerlitz. A calendar note: due to Easter the date of this discussion has been moved from our ususal 3rd Sunday to April 23. Book description:

Austerlitz, the internationally acclaimed masterpiece by “one of the most gripping writers imaginable” (The New York Review of Books), is the story of a man’s search for the answer to his life’s central riddle. A small child when he comes to England on a Kindertransport in the summer of 1939, one Jacques Aus-terlitz is told nothing of his real family by the Welsh Methodist minister and his wife who raise him. When he is a much older man, fleeting memories return to him, and obeying an instinct he only dimly understands, he follows their trail back to the world he left behind a half century before. There, faced with the void at the heart of twentieth-century Europe, he struggles to rescue his heritage from oblivion.

Jose Latour Update

One of the few titles on our list which our Esteemed Readers agreed was disappointing was Jose Latour's Outcast. I recall I enjoyed the first few chapters set in Cuba, which makes me think I might enjoy a novel set entirely in Cuba or perhaps one of his novels in Spanish if they are translated at some point. For those who haven't written him off completely, here's some insight from a real fan (and friend) of Latour's, Marc Cooper (LA Weekly), as well as an update on Latour's recent activities.

Senate Resolution introduced for Ken Saro-Wiwa

Senators Leahy, Kennedy, Feingold, Obama, Dodd and Durbin have introduced Senate Resolution 303, calling on the Nigerian government to conduct a thorough judicial review of the Ken Saro-Wiwa case. Visit the Amnesty website for more info and to get your Senators on board.

Resources on Slavery

While Edward Jones makes it clear that he went to no great lengths to research his novel, The Known World, the book did provoke our interest in learning more about the reality of slavery. Here are a few resources I've been exploring:

The Library of Congress offers excerpts from Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938 These narratives were collected in the 1930s as part of the Federal Writer's Proejct of the Works Progress Administration. Some audio is also available, or try the documentary, Unchained Memories, made from these interviews.

The PBS series Africans in America has a website offering a resource bank of documentation, illustrations and interviews.

The University of Virgina also offers an image bank --"The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas: A Visual Record."

Finally, for another unusual slant on the topic, the New York Historical Society offers an online exhibition on Slavery in New York.

Nigeria: Report on Forced Evictions

Last summer we were moved by the description of the Lagos slum demolition which is the climax of Chris Abani's novel, Graceland. Now Amnesty has released a report, Nigeria: Making the destitute homeless - forced evictions in Makoko, Lagos state on just such an incident.

Pamuk: Case Dropped

Turkey has dropped the charges against Orhan Pamuk avoiding much embarrassment, but the offending law still stands. On the Media interviews Kevin Goldberg of the World Press Freedom Committee about that organization's Campaign Against Insult Laws. It's not just the Turks!

Ignatieff wins

It seems Michael Ignatieff, author of the Rights Readers selection, Virtual War: Kosovo and Beyond, stood for a seat in the Canadian parliament. The Guardian has a profile and the Globe and Mail confirms he won.

Update on Holiday Card Action

The Miami Herald reports that Father Gerard Jean-Juste of Haiti has leukemia. We wrote cards of support to Father Jean-Juste during our December write-a-thon. Loyal Rights Readers will note the involvement of Paul Farmer, profiled in Tracy Kidder's Mountains Beyond Mountains.

Dr. Paul Farmer, a friend and supporter of Jean-Juste, says the jailed priest has chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), a form of the blood and marrow disease that progresses slowly but can develop into a more virulent strain of cancer. In several e-mails and a telephone interview from Rwanda, where he is working this week, Farmer explained that he examined Jean-Juste without guards' knowledge on Dec. 23. He drew blood and brought it to Miami, where it was analyzed by a University of Miami hematologist. ''I can assure you he has leukemia,'' Farmer wrote to The Miami Herald on Wednesday. Jean-Juste, known as ''Father Gerry'' when he lived in Miami and led the nation's most powerful Haitian rights group, was arrested July 21 for alleged involvement in the kidnapping and murder of Haitian journalist Jacques Roche. He and his supporters vehemently deny the allegations. Many observers have expressed concerns that his detention is simply a move to silence Jean-Juste. Amnesty International calls him a ''prisoner of conscience'' and 42 members of the U.S. Congress signed a letter demanding his release.

For February: Harbor by Lorraine Adams

Administrative Note: We've swapped our February and March titles in order to allow more time to obtain copies of "A Death in Brazil."

Here is a description of our February title, Harbor by Lorraine Adams.

A powerful first novel that engages the tumultuous events of today: at once an intimate portrait of a group of young Arab Muslims living in the United States, and the story of one man's journey into–and out of–violence.
We first meet Aziz Arkoun as a 24-year-old stowaway–frozen, hungry, his perceptions jammed by a language he can't understand or speak. After 52 days in the hold of a tanker from Algeria, he jumps into the icy waters of Boston harbor and swims to shore. Seemingly rescued from isolation by Algerians he knew as a child, he instead finds himself in a world of disillusionment, duplicity, and stolen identities, living a raw comedy of daily survival not unlike what he fled back home.

As the story of Aziz and his friends unfolds–moving from the hardscrabble neighborhoods of East Boston and Brooklyn to a North African army camp–Harbor makes vivid the ambiguities of these men's past and present lives: burying a murdered girl in the Sahara; reading medieval Persian poetry on a bus, passing for Mexican; shoplifting Versace for clubbing, succumbing to sex in a public library; impersonating a double agent. But when Aziz begins to suspect that he and his friends are under surveillance, all assumptions–his and ours–dissolve in an urgent, mesmerizing complexity.

And as Harbor races to its explosive conclusion, it compels us to question the questions it raises: Who are the terrorists? Can we recognize them? How do they live?

For February: Harbor

Administrative Note: We've swapped our February and March titles in order to allow more time to obtain copies of "A Death in Brazil."

Here is a description of our February title, Harbor by Lorraine Adams.

A powerful first novel that engages the tumultuous events of today: at once an intimate portrait of a group of young Arab Muslims living in the United States, and the story of one man's journey into–and out of–violence.
We first meet Aziz Arkoun as a 24-year-old stowaway–frozen, hungry, his perceptions jammed by a language he can't understand or speak. After 52 days in the hold of a tanker from Algeria, he jumps into the icy waters of Boston harbor and swims to shore. Seemingly rescued from isolation by Algerians he knew as a child, he instead finds himself in a world of disillusionment, duplicity, and stolen identities, living a raw comedy of daily survival not unlike what he fled back home.

As the story of Aziz and his friends unfolds–moving from the hardscrabble neighborhoods of East Boston and Brooklyn to a North African army camp–Harbor makes vivid the ambiguities of these men's past and present lives: burying a murdered girl in the Sahara; reading medieval Persian poetry on a bus, passing for Mexican; shoplifting Versace for clubbing, succumbing to sex in a public library; impersonating a double agent. But when Aziz begins to suspect that he and his friends are under surveillance, all assumptions–his and ours–dissolve in an urgent, mesmerizing complexity.

And as Harbor races to its explosive conclusion, it compels us to question the questions it raises: Who are the terrorists? Can we recognize them? How do they live?