Writing in the local paper. Local issues with a global take. I never translate literally and the editor trims at will to make it fit. Here’s my version, then theirs. It’s hard to tell which Americanisms will get adopted in foreign lands and I suppose it’s even more difficult to predict just how these foreign…
Writing in the local paper. Local issues with a global take. I never translate literally and the editor trims at will to make it fit. Here’s my version, then theirs. My father-in-law, a wise and decent man from a small village in the northwestern corner of Extremadura called San Martin de Trevejo, tells a tale…
Writing in the local paper. Local issues with a global take. I never translate literally and the editor trims at will to make it fit. Here’s my version, then theirs. One of my first memories of Spain is how time felt completely different here than it did anywhere else I had ever been. During my…
Writing in the local paper. Local issues with a global take. I never translate literally and the editor trims at will to make it fit. Here’s my version, then theirs. I remember watching with amazement, and not just a little discomfort, as the young men in pointy shoes leapt through the air over the huge…
Writing in the local paper. Local issues with a global take. I never translate literally and the editor trims at will to make it fit. Here’s my version, then theirs. I tell my North American friends that I live inside a castle and I suppose that I’m not technically lying, though I suppose fortress would…
Writing in the local paper. Local issues with a global take. I never translate literally and the editor trims at will to make it fit. Here’s my version, then theirs. For some, the holidays are a welcome time of routine. Of doing what you’ve always done and feeling a sense of security in knowing that…
Writing in the local paper. Local issues with a global take. I never translate literally and the editor trims at will to make it fit. Here’s my version, then theirs. I suppose that they had been slithering along the margins of my subconscious for some time but were recently brought into focus by a picture…
Writing in the local paper. Local issues with a global take. I never translate literally and the editor trims at will to make it fit. Here’s my version, then theirs. It happened while we were overlooking one of the world’s unofficial wonders, sitting under a desperately thirsty acacia tree, swatting away flies and scratching at fleas. A temple…
Yesterday I walked up the hill leading to my polling station under a clear blue sky, a color I would later realize that had foreshadowed the colour of the electoral results that have carpeted this country from corner to corner…a resoundly conservative azul. I’m the only foreigner in my voting area, or at least the…
A successful Chinese Buddhist businesswoman who professes her devotion to a 15th century crucifixtion figure gives birth to a Nestorian satori in my first piece blogging for El Pais. Of course, all framed within the slightly morbid context of the celebration here on the decidedly european Iberian peninsula of a man’s death by torture so many years…