Election Author Opinion Sampler

Voted already? I have, but I'm still pre-occupied with the election while awaiting the results and can't quite move on to other topics, but I'm tired of reading the same old predictable pundits. So just for fun, let's have a look at what some of our favorite writers have been saying about the issues and candidates:

Kwame Anthony Appiah (The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen) in the New York Review of Books on how our electoral choices shape legacies and lessons learned and at Think Progress about this election and racial identity.

Walter Mosely (Little Scarlet) opines at The Guardian: 'He was like a surgeon given a rusty scalpel'

Stephen Kinzer (Crescent and Star: Turkey Between Two Worlds) in a talk at Northeastern University offers foreign policy advice to the candidates: 'Precisely because we are so powerful, the U.S. desperately needs a more humble attitude as we consider how and whether to intervene around the world'. Video of the complete lecture here.

It can't be too surprising that the preferences of most authors we have read lean Democratic, but there is at least one exception -- Mary Ann Glendon (A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights), a registered independent who is an adviser to the Romney campaign: 'The population is divided, families are divided; it’s like the Civil War when some wore blue and some wore grey and (they) were often brothers.'

Philip Gourevitch (The Ballad of Abu Ghraib) at The New Yorker on Syria, Sandy, and surviving disaster: 'The storm we’re now riding out is beyond any government’s control, but the response to it is not.'

Junot Diaz (Apocalypse: What Disasters Reveal), who made an eloquent case for the importance of a motivating story in critiquing Obama's State of the Union a couple years back, thinks the president has the edge at the moment,  'But as far as the level of storyteller is concerned, I have a far clearer sense of who Obama is during this election, than I do at all of Romney'.

Amnesty International USA put out a bingo card for the debates highlighting human right issues the presidential candidates should be asked about and discuss. Sadly, many of these topics did not get their due. I know I would have liked to hear a stronger human rights narrative from both candidates. You can still play human rights bingo with Amnesty while you await election results, with each square offering up the chance to inform your elected representatives of some human rights priority. Get started on our human rights agenda today.

Rights Readers Authors on Libya

We've already mentioned that Stephen Kinzer and Wangari Maathai have weighed in on the military action in Libya, but I just wanted to at least note that Obama administration advisor, Samantha Power (A Problem from Hell), has been prominently featured in reports as supporting the push to implement a no-fly zone.  It may be some time before we are able to get her insider account of the debate leading up to this decision, but Loyal Readers may want to check out the kinds of questions another of our authors, Philip Gourevitch, poses in response to these developments.  See also this Amnesty International Q&A. Take action on behalf of refugees fleeing Libya here.

Rights Readers Round-up

Another of our periodic posts rounding up what's new with Rights Readers authors:

Salman Rushdie has a part in the film version of Midnight's Children
to be directed by Deepa Mehta (Water). More here.

Philip Gourevitch (We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families) defends Obama,

Mr. Obama is not suppressing information when he opposes the release of more photographs. After all, he just made public a series of Bush administration torture policy memos that authorize the very methods for inflicting pain and suffering that the Abu Ghraib photographs represent. In fact, it is because of Mr. Obama’s leadership in bringing these dark practices to light that the press and the public — having for too long been passive to the point of complicity on the issue — are now agitating for more sensational imagery. Who are we trying to fool, if not ourselves, if we pretend that we need more photos to know what has been going on?

Amira Hass (Drinking the Sea at Gaza) arrested as she returns from Israel to Gaza. This incident not really getting in the way of her reporting the nitty gritty of life in Gaza.

Did not know that Hector Tobar (The Tattooed Soldier) is an LAT columnist. I think that's where I will go when I need a shot of LA nostalgia, especially columns like this. I miss my raucous neighborhood parrots.

Amulya Malladi (A Breath of Fresh Air) has her own blog.

Philip Gourevitch Update

Philip Gourevitch, author of We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda, a book Rights Readers selected almost ten years ago, has returned to Rwanda and although the resulting New Yorker article is available to subscribers only, you can listen to him discuss his experiences here. He has also suggested some further reading on the Rwandan genocide and its aftermath at The Book Bench. On another of his favorite topics, you can read some of his recent commentary on torture here and listen to a discussion on the topic on the April 23rd edition of the "Political Scene" podcast.

Torture Awareness Month: State of Emergency

It's not like this blog is going to stop going on about torture once June is over, but I just wanted to use this excuse to highlight another audio archive from the PEN website. Last fall's "State of Emergency Event" features a series of powerful readings against torture, arbitrary detention and extraordinary rendition. Hear Rights Readers authors such as Philip Gourevitch reading Abraham Lincoln or Walter Mosley reading Ariel Dorfman.