Patrick Smith was a correspondent abroad for many years, chiefly for the International Herald Tribune. (reporting from Tokyo) and The New Yorker. His most recent book is Japan: A Reinterpretation (Vintage).
A year ago now, when the Bush Administration was preparing the world for an American invasion of Iraq, John le Carré wrote a column of scathing, sharp-toothed commentary for the Times
Patrick Smith
In a broad square not far from the center of Jakarta, a large obelisk of concrete soars into the sky.
Someone once described Graham Greene as the novelist of decolonizing Britain.
Why is so much fiction written in our language and why is so much of what is written of so little consequence?
How are we to read the International Conference on Financing for Development, which recently concluded in Monterrey, Mexico? Just another United Nations talkathon?
Some Sundays back, the New York Times fronted a story from its Paris correspondent, Suzanne Daley, about the fear and loathing Americans induce among Europeans these days.
Whenever Gide wrote or spoke about himself directly, which was not infrequently, he would insist that his wars within were to be traced to his very genes.
Americans aren’t much for history these days. History is for Europeans–for Germans, with their thickets of theory, and the French, who are forever going on about their revolution.