Charles R. Larson

Charles R. Larson is Emeritus Professor of Literature at American University, in Washington, D.C. Email = clarson@american.edu. Twitter @LarsonChuck.

Thatcher Almost Gets It: Jonathan Lee’s “High Dive”

A Central American Masterpiece: Sergio Ramírez’s “Divine Punishment”

Blueprint for Disaster

Kill for Trump: the Violence Has Only Begun

Castrating Donkeys

Africa’s On-Going Attraction: Levison Wood’s “Walking the Nile”

Prisoner Rehabilitation Around the World

Make Love to Your Gun

No Brainers: When Hitler Took Cocaine and Lenin Lost His Brain

Can One Survive the Holocaust?

Half-a-Million Refugees Who Don’t Exist: Ben Rawlence’s “City of Thorns”

Shaggy Horse Story: Vladimir Sorokin’s “The Blizzard”

Charlie Hebdo Lives: Charb’s Open Letter

Marginalized in Puerto Rico: Eduardo Lalo’s “Simone”

After Stalin’s Death: Ludmila Ulitskaya’s “The Big Green Tent”

“Oh, Barbie, You Can Speak”

Black Lives Do Not Matter

The Sad, Inescapable Reality: Mercè Rodoreda’s “War, So Much War”

Catalan Death Trip, Mexican Spinster Mix-Up: Two Stories at Extreme Ends

Sleep With Your Gun

Two Men Bigger Than Life: Oscar Hijuelos’ “Twain & Stanley Enter Paradise”

Twofers for Carly Fiorina

Chronicle of Sex Reassignment Surgery: Juliet Jacques’s “Trans: a Memoir”

Memory, Repressed and Distorted: Patrick Modiano’s “So You Don’t Get Lost in the Neighborhood”

Russia’s War in Chechnya: Anthony Marra’s “The Tsar of Love and Techno”

White Man Go Primitive: Christian Kracht’s “Imperium”

A Slow, Decent Affair: Mario Benedetti’s “The Truce”

The Muslims are Coming: Michel Houellebecq’s “Submission”

Istanbul Saga: Orhan Pamuk’s “A Strangeness in My Mind”

Prelude to the Spanish Civil War: Eduard Mendoza’s “An Englishman in Madrid”

Indonesia: Robbed, Raped, Abused

Shaggy Dog Bites Back: Valeria Luiselli’s “The Story of My Teeth”

Extreme Destitution in America

Hey, Wanna Buy the New Stieg Larsson?

Class and Colonialism in British Cairo

The Beginning of the Poppy Wars: Amitav Ghosh’s “Flood of Fire”

President Trump: the First 100 Days

The Hunter and the Hunted

Turkey at the Seams: Hasan Ali Toptaș’s “Reckless”

Nigerians Deceiving Nigerians: Julie Iromuanya’s “Mr. and Mrs. Doctor”

Tango Bends Its Gender: Carolina De Robertis’s “The Gods of Tango”

The USA as a Failed State: Ta-Nehisi Coates’s “Between the World and Me”

Go Set the Record Straight: Harper Lee’s New Novel, Cui Bono?

Recovering from the Civil War: Dolen Perkins-Valdez’s “Balm”

The Only Thing We Love: Alan Pauls’ “A History of Money”

Miss Lonelyparts

Dickens’ Originality or Seymour’s?

Don’t Dump Alexander Hamilton

The Pope is My Man

Dignity for Camus’ Arab