April 2000
In This Issue
Vladimir Nabokov, “Nabokov's Butterflies”; Charles Trueheart, “A New Kind of Justice”; Chuck Sudetic, “The Reluctant Gendarme”; David Rieff, “Midnight in Sarajevo”; and much more.
Articles
The Best Pickup-Basketball Player in America
The man any true basketball devotee wants to play with or against
A New Kind of Justice
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia is the world's first war-crimes tribunal since Nuremberg. The major powers have accepted the tribunal's jurisdiction and submitted to its authority, which is far broader than most people understand. Although not even idealists would have predicted it a decade ago, something like this tribunal may soon become a permanent feature in the world
Jersey Rain
Nabokov's Butterflies, Introduction
A cache of previously unpublished work -- fictional and scientific, playful and didactic -- by the novelist and distinguished lepidopterist: "the last important unpublished fiction by Nabokov." The translation from the Russian is by Nabokov's son, Dmitri. Brian Boyd, Nabokov's biographer, provides an introduction
77 North Washington Street
Cloud, Castle, Lake
The Aurelian
After the Wars
Yugoslavia and the World
The Reluctant Gendarme
Why is France protecting indicted war criminals in the sector of Bosnia it controls?
Midnight in Sarajevo
A city that was once the center of the world's horrified attention is now a safe place again -- but a sad place, where corruption reigns, opportunities are rare, and the young and the talented only want to get out
Regulation by Shaming
Forcing companies to disclose health and safety information can improve customer choices and industry practices -- but it can also distort perceptions of what should be changed
The Raft
"It had zero to do with war," my grandfather said, "and everything to do with the uniform I was wearing. Because my job was to make decisions. Besides, what the hell would I have done with a boatload of naked Japanese?"
High-Performance Poets
W. H. Auden, James Merrill, and Sylvia Plath read from their work in recordings previously unavailable
A Hand for the Head
New directions in niche marketing
Our First Telephone
"Out here in the Alaskan bush we want it all: we want choice, we want privacy, and still we want to listen in."
Around the Big Bend
The magnificently solitary landscape of West Texas is studded with surprises
The Baddest of Bad Art
Reviled until recently, academic art is being revalued, and a museum inspired by a mystical Beirut collector is helping to show the way
The Toronto Circle
In accomplished stories and novels South Asian writers who are exiles in Canada are re-creating the worlds they left behind
Were the Hawks Right About the Vietnam War?
Brief Reviews
Letters to the Editor
The Almanac
Word Court
