An American Catastrophe
The secret history of the U.S. government’s family-separation policy
September 2022
In This Issue
The U.S. government’s catastrophic family-separation policy, Sterlin Harjo’s ‘Reservation Dogs,’ and two sisters’ escape from the Taliban. Plus an essay by Cynthia Ozick, “toxic” people, the case for bodice rippers, why rich people love quiet, John Donne, and more.
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I Smuggled My Laptop Past the Taliban So I Could Write This Story
My escape from Afghanistan
Rez Life
Sterlin Harjo’s genre-mixing, cliché-exploding series captures coming of age as a Native kid like no TV show before it.
The Wedding Present
As a young woman, I had a friendly correspondence with a German soldier right after World War II. I’ve been thinking about the silence at the core of our exchange ever since.
Dispatches
Illustration by Gabriela Pesqueira. Sources: CSA Images / Getty; Fotograzia / Getty; Ryasick / Getty That’s It. You’re Dead to Me.
Suddenly everyone is “toxic.”
Jorge Colombo Why Do Rich People Love Quiet?
The sound of gentrification is silence.
Science Photo Library / NASA Is She a Fluke? A Token? A Trailblazer?
When women enter the frame
Culture & Critics
Illustration by Paul Spella. Source: Bettmann / Getty; Heritage Images / Getty. The Unlovable, Irresistible John Donne
The Elizabethan poet and divine was a mystic in bed and a mystic in the pulpit.
Oliver Munday Mohsin Hamid’s Empty Parable
The author’s novel about race transformation fails to take an old idea to new places.
Illustration by Oliver Munday. Source: Photoquest / Getty. ‘The Greatest Talker of His Time’
Felix Frankfurter was an eloquent liberal champion of judicial restraint. Is it time for a reappraisal?
Illustration by Nícolas Ortega. Source: Jean Honoré Fragonard. Don’t Call Them Trash
Romance novels celebrate female pleasure and aspiration.
Departments
The Atlantic ‘I Don’t Think Jesus Himself Would Fit With Today’s Evangelical Base’
Readers respond to a story in our June issue.
Tim Lahan An Ode to Being in a Band
I can’t believe how good we sound.
Poetry
Gabriela Pesqueira
