Berat— Albania’s oldest city —has 1,000 identically-shaped windows in its Ottoman-era old town and a Byzantine city on top of one of its mountains. The Osum River runs through the town with buildings hugging the slopes. A green ridged range covers its north side....
In Albania, time folds, though the marching chronology of the country’s last 130 years appears stark with fundamental change: The Ottoman Empire, Nationalist Monarchy, Italian Fascism, Enver Hoxha’s Stalinism, Enver Hoxha’s Maoism, Enver’s Hoxha’s Enverism— a...
Getting off the train in Madrid we followed the crowds into the dark city. Our train companions formed a line for taxis, but we crossed the street and miracle of miracles, got on the right bus with backpacks and naked guitar, off at the right stop, and to the right...
For seven months in Minneapolis, we gave away our things. Items with memories attached, once gone—are quickly forgotten. Gifting two thousand books I thought represented me, I felt more free than I had in decades. And yet, in our tiny apartment in Portugal, what did...
We were in Montgomery when tornados devastated downtown Selma, on January 12, hitting urban and rural regions across Georgia and Alabama, and killing at least eight people. In the morning we had considered riding to Selma, stopping to take in the art and public...
A 2021 article described local efforts to uncover Black history and revive historic African American neighborhoods in Daytona Beach. In it was a photograph attributed to Gordon Parks, and originating from the Halifax Historical Museum. I wanted to see the...
