Literary Type

Paul Theroux’s Insights On Self-Radicalization By Mark D. Walker (Guatemala 1971-73) • Theroux’s article is one of most informative and insightful pieces written on the self-radicalization to terrorist groups like ISIS and the Taliban. He harkens back to his own Peace Corps experience as a young volunteer unaware of what he was getting into by supporting an opposition group in Malawi. He compares this experience to that of John Walker Lindh who has been called a traitor when his idealism, according to Theroux, is deep in the American experience. Theroux compares his naivety at 24 with that of Lindh who converted to Islam when he was 16 and after studying at a madrasa in Pakistan joined the Afghan Army in 2001.  In the case of Theroux’s misdeeds he was threatened with detention, expelled from the country as an undesirable alien, thrown out of the Peace Corps and fined. In both cases . . .

  Pardon the American Taliban By PAUL THEROUX NY Times, OCT. 22, 2016 In the mid-1960s a young American teacher in a small central African country became involved with a group of political rebels — former government ministers mostly — who had been active in the struggle for independence. They had fallen out with the authoritarian prime minister, objecting to his dictatorial style. The country was newly independent, hardly a year old. The men advocated democratic elections and feared that the prime minister would declare himself leader for life in a one-party state. Fluent in the local language, obscure because he was a teacher in a bush school, and easily able to travel in and out of the country on his United States passport, the American performed various favors for the rebels, small rescues for their families, money transfers, and in one effort drove a car over 2,000 miles on back . . .

  This is from today’s LaBloga:   The Wetback and Other Stories marks Ron Arias’ (Peru 1963-65) return to fiction after a career in non-fiction reporting from across the globe for People Magazine. The book brings together fourteen previously published stories, along with two new pieces. Arte Publico Press publishes The Wetback and Other Stories. Here’s a podcast of Arias discussing the collection https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/larb-radio-hour/id998390884?mt=2 • The Wetback and Other Stories Ron Arias (Peru 1963–65) Arte Publico Press September 2016 160 pages $17.95 (paperback)  

In an effort to speak truth to power in the way I am best able, I wrote and contributed a short personal essay to a movement called Dedicate Your No-Trump Vote. While this started as a collection of stories from Pulitzer Prize-winning and bestselling novelists, it quickly expanded to include not just writers but a military personnel, teachers, community activists, etc — all of whom are thinking beyond the individual and dedicating their votes as acts of hope for the future.  If you’re inclined to share, my dedication is here: https://dedicateyournotrumpvote.blogspot.com/2016/10/ellen-urbanis-dedication.html  Though it often feels I’m preaching to the choir, I also know that every voice raised is a chance to potentially reach someone who may not yet have considered a particular perspective that might give him/her pause. Thank you, Ellen Urbani (Guatemala 1991-93)   Monday, October 3, 2016 When I was 23, I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Guatemala, a country then . . .

Paul Theroux’s (Malawi 1963-65) son Louis Theroux’s documentary on Jimmy Savile will be broadcasted on Sunday 2 October at 21:00 on BBC Two Louis says, “I was at my wedding in July 2012 when I learned that the DJ and TV presenter Jimmy Savile was to be unmasked as a sexual predator in an upcoming ITV documentary. At that time, I imagined I knew Savile reasonably well. I’d made my own documentary about him in 2000, filming with him for about two weeks at his various homes around Britain. I’d stayed in contact for several years after the film went out, making occasional trips up to Leeds. There was always a professional pretext – a DVD commentary to record, a new series to promote – but the visits also had a social dimension. They usually involved a meal at a local restaurant and sometimes an overnight stay at his penthouse . . .

  In late 2015 John James Quinn published Global Geopolitical Power and African Political and Economic Institutions: When Elephants Fight, an academic book on sub-Saharan Africa political and economic institutions from an international relations perspective. Quinn teaches political science at Truman State University (that’s in Missouri) and is editor of the McNair Scholarly Review. What is most impressive about the book is the price: Hardback $110.00; eBook $104.50 Here’s the blurb on Amazon about the book. Global Geopolitical Power and African Political and Economic Institutions: When Elephants Fight describes the emergence and nature of the prevailing African political and economic institutions in two periods. In the first, most countries adopted political and economic institutions that funneled significant levels of political and economic power to the political elites, usually through one- or no-party (military) political systems, inward-oriented development policies, and/ or state-led—and often state-owned—industrialization. In the second period, most countries adopted institutions that . . .

  Alana DeJoseph (Mali 1992-94) who is working on a film about the Peace Corps entitled, The Towering Task,  has just been filming PCVs in Ukraine and alerted me to a former Peace Corps Volunteer in the Ukraine, Chris Miller (Ukraine 2010-2012). Alana writes, “Miller is a highly respected journalist in Ukraine now and does much reporting on the conflict in the east of the country.”   As a PCV, Miller was a Youth Developer Volunteer. He taught, as he writes on Linked In, “English, volunteerism, journalism, IT, healthy living, employment skills, teamwork and sports to Ukrainian youth. I was responsible for the organization of seminars, retreats and camps specializing in sustainable teaching of healthy lifestyles topics by Ukrainian nationals and future PCVs, as well as NGO development. I organized and instructed clubs for local youth, including English clubs, journalism clubs and sports clubs.”   Alana was kind enough to forward to . . .

  On Sunday, September 18, at 4pm, the Hotchkiss Library in  Sharon, Conn. will present, ‘The Color of Citizenship: The Impact of the Japanese-American Internment during World War II.” Author and Sharon resident Marnie Mueller (Ecuador 1963-65) will relate her experiences growing up as a Caucasian with her parents in the Tule Lake camp in northern California. A theme of Mueller’s talk is the relationship she sees between the internment camps and the current political climate. Refreshments. Registration preferred. For further information or to reserve a seat, please call the library, 860 364-5041.

  The Paul Cowan Non-Fiction Award First given in 1990 this Award was named to honor Paul Cowan, a Peace Corps Volunteer who served in Ecuador. Cowan wrote The Making of An Un-American about his experiences as a Volunteer in Latin America in the sixties. A longtime activist and political writer for The Village Voice, Cowan died of leukemia in 1988. Winner of the 2016 Paul Cowan Non-Fiction Award  The Great Surge: The Ascent of the Developing World  by Steven Radelet (Western Samoa 1981-83) • The Maria Thomas Fiction Award This Award is named after the novelist Maria Thomas [Roberta Worrick (Ethiopia 1971–73)] who was the author of a well-reviewed novel and two collections of short stories all set in Africa. She lost her life in August, 1989, while working in Ethiopia for a relief agency. She went down in the plane crash that killed Congressman Mickey Leland of Texas. Winner of the Maria Thomas Fiction . . .

  I recently learned the sad news that Phil Dacey (Nigeria 1963-65) died in Minneapolis on July 7, 2016, at age 77, after a nearly two-year struggle with acute leukemia. Phil won the Peace Corps Writers Poetry Award in 2000 for his collection, The Deathbed Playboy. He also won three Pushcart Prizes and the Discovery Award from the Poetry Center of the 92nd Street YM-YWHA. Phil was the recipient of a Woodrow Wilson fellowship from Stanford University as well as fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Bush Foundation, and the Loft-McKnight Foundation. He served as poet- or writer-in-residence at Wichita State University, the University of Idaho, and Minnesota State University at Mankato. While teaching at Southwest State Minnesota University, Dacey founded the Marshall Festivals, the Minnesota Writers’ Festival, and the International Film Series. He lived in Minneapolis until his death. Over the . . .

  Democracy on the Edge, a Discussion of Political Issues in America by Terry A. AmRhein (Swaziland 1973-75) has been named the “Best Political Book” of 2016 by Pacific Book Review. AmRhein graduated from the University of Virginia with a Bachelor of Science degree in physics, and while in the Peace Corps he taught science and technology at the Swaziland Institute of Technology. After his tour he worked briefly as the National Advocacy Coordinator for the NPCA. Since his Peace Corps years, Terry has spent most of his career in the field of power generation. While working he also earned masters degrees in mechanical engineering and in business and was a professional engineer in New York State. Terry has published one other book, The Newcomers Guide to Winning Local Elections.

  The following is the introduction to a PDF file of a bibliography of Peace Corps writers’ books prepared by the Library of Congress. The listing drew on a Peace Corps Writers listing last updated in 2011.: ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF PEACE CORPS WRITERS’ BOOKS IN THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS REVISED AND UPDATED NOVEMBER 2015 Rex A. Hudson, Federal Research Division ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This bibliography owes its existence to an exchange of letters between Rep. John Garamendi (Ethiopia, 1966–68) and Dr. James Billington, who served as the 13th the Librarian of Congress (September 1987–September 2015). In his letter of December 17, 2010 [see https://peacecorpsworldwide.org/pc-writers/files/2011/01/letter.pdf] (sic— link does not work), the Honorable Rep. Garamendi asked Dr. Billington to mark the special 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps on September 22, 2011, “by establishing a collection of books about the Peace Corps experience written by former Peace Corps Volunteers and Peace Corps staff.” In response, Dr. . . .

About the University National University (NU) is a fully-accredited, not-for-profit university that offers undergraduate and graduate online classes in an accelerated format where courses last either four- or eight-weeks long, and students take only one course at a time. This format offers flexibility to students to take time off from the program for employment, travel, or other obligations. This asynchronous online format allows students to study from anywhere in the world that has an Internet connection. Graduate students at National have completed their Masters Degrees from places as distant as Japan, Guam, Alaska, and Afghanistan. About the Creative Writing MFA Established in 2005, the National University’s Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing (MFA/CW) offered by the  School of Arts and Sciences offers four genres of study: fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, or screenwriting. Like Masters Degrees in all fine and applied arts,  the MFA in Creative Writing is considered a terminal degree. It thus qualifies a graduate to . . .

John Sherman (Nigeria 1966–67, Malawi 1967–68) has just released his latest spoken-word CD, Home: Stories of a Childhood Told in Poems. The 32-poem CD was made possible, in part, by an Individual Artist Program grant from the Indiana Arts Commission. One of the poems, “Barefoot Meetings,” was written when John was in a meeting at Peace Corps headquarters and while serving as Africa Coordinator. Other poems were written while he was on the staff at PC/HQ in Washington, D.C., including “Flying Home from Kabul.” That poem was written on the plane over Canada, returning from a Peace Corps conference in Kabul. John has received several grants and awards for his writings, including four Individual Artist Program grants, the New Mexico Governor’s Award of Honor for Historic Preservation for the book, Santa Fe: A Pictorial History (Donning, 1983, 2nd edition 1996), and the manuscript for Marjorie Main: Rural Documentary Poetry (Mesa Verde Press, 1999). That earned him a . . .

In the title story of The Wetback and Other Stories by Ron Arias (Peru 1963–65), Mrs. Rentería shouts, “David is mine!” as she and her neighbors gather about the dead but handsome young man found in the dry riverbed next to their homes in a Los Angeles barrio. “Since when is his name David?” someone asks, and soon everyone is arguing about the mysterious corpse’s name, throwing out suggestions: Luis, Roberto, Antonio, Henry, Enrique, Miguel, Roy, Rafael. Many of the pieces in this collection take place in a Los Angeles neighborhood that used to be called Frog Town, now known as Elysian Valley. Ron Arias reveals the lives of his Mexican-American community: there’s Eddie Vera, who goes from school yard enforcer to jail bird and finally commando fighting in Central America; a boy named Tom, who chews his nails so incessantly that it leads to painful jalapeño chili treatments, banishment . . .