Far and Away

Reporting from the Brink of Change

Andrew Solomon

• Publisher: Scribner
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781476795065
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Literary Essays
• Index: Social Sciences

From the winner of the National Book Award and the National Books Critics' Circle Award—and one of the most original thinkers of our time—"Andrew Solomon's magisterial Far and Away collects a quarter-century of soul-shaking essays" ( Vanity Fair ). Far and Away chronicles Andrew Solomon's writings about places undergoing seismic shifts—political, cultural, and spiritual. From his stint on the barricades in Moscow in 1991, when he joined artists in resisting the coup whose failure ended the Soviet Union, his 2002 account of the rebirth of culture in Afghanistan following the fall of the Taliban, his insightful appraisal of a Myanmar seeped in contradictions as it slowly, fitfully pushes toward freedom, and many other stories of profound upheaval, this book provides a unique window onto the very idea of social change. With his signature brilliance and compassion, Solomon demonstrates both how history is altered by individuals, and how personal identities are altered when governments alter.A journalist and essayist of remarkable perception and prescience, Solomon captures the essence of these cultures. Ranging across seven continents and twenty-five years, these "meaty dispatches…are brilliant geopolitical travelogues that also comprise a very personal and reflective resume of the National Book Award winner's globe-trotting adventures" ( Elle ). Far and Away takes a magnificent journey into the heart of extraordinarily diverse experiences: "You will not only know the world better after having seen it through Solomon's eyes, you will also care about it more" (Elizabeth Gilbert).

Index

A note about the index: The pages referenced in this index refer to the page numbers in the print edition. Clicking on a page number will take you to the ebook location that corresponds to the beginning of that page in the print edition. For a comprehensive list of locations of any word or phrase, use your reading system’s search function.

Absolutely Fabulous (TV), 214

abstract expressionism, 152

Abu Ghraib, 350

ACCEPT (Romanian gay-rights organization), 437, 440

Acer America, 184, 195, 202

Aegis Trust, 305

Aeschylus, 214

Afghanistan:

after the Taliban, 269–85

artistic community in, 270–72, 273–74, 276, 284–85

author’s friends in, 38–39

Contemporary Art Prize in, 284

culture destroyed in, 29, 271–72

dinner party in, 280–83

ethnic groups in, 278–79, 461

filmmakers in, 275–77

music in, 277–80

poets in, 274–75

rebuilding, 272–73

Soviet invasion of, 6, 11, 272, 275, 460

Taliban in, 28, 38, 270–75, 278, 279–80, 460, 461

television in, 272–73, 278

update, 283–84

women in, 27–28, 271, 276, 277, 284

Africa:

antisodomy laws in, 35

gay people in, 431

“native art” in, 146

tourism in, 23, 227

transitional societies in, 249

see also specific nations

African Americans, Trump’s generalization of, 505

African National Congress (ANC), 142, 148, 151, 157, 162–64, 175

Agili, Hasan, 35, 39, 335, 356, 514–16

Ahmida, Ali Abdullatif, 326, 345

Ainslie, Bill, 152

Ai Weiwei, 103, 129, 137, 138, 139–40

Akhlaqi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Dispatches from Everywhere
• USSR: The Winter Palettes
• USSR: Three Days in August
• Russia: Young Russia’s Defiant Decadence
• China: Their Irony, Humor (and Art) Can Save China
• South Africa: The Artists of South Africa: Separate, and Equal
• USA: Vlady’s Conquests
• Taiwan: “Don’t Mess with Our Cultural Patrimony!”
• Taiwan: On Each Palette, a Choice of Political Colors
• Turkey: Sailing to Byzantium
• Zambia: Enchanting Zambia
• Cambodia: Phaly Nuon’s Three Steps
• Mongolia: The Open Spaces of Mongolia
• Greenland: Inventing the Conversation
• Senegal: Naked, Covered in Ram’s Blood, Drinking a Coke, and Feeling Pretty Good
• Afghanistan: An Awakening after the Taliban
• Japan: Museum without Walls
• Solomon Islands: Song of Solomons
• Rwanda: Children of Bad Memories
• Libya: Circle of Fire: Letter from Libya
• China: All the Food in China
• China: Outward Opulence for Inner Peace: The Qianlong Garden of Retirement
• Antarctica: Adventures in Antarctica
• Indonesia: When Everyone Signs
• Brazil: Rio, City of Hope
• Ghana: In Bed with the President of Ghana?
• Romania: Gay, Jewish, Mentally Ill, and a Sponsor of Gypsies in Romania
• Myanmar: Myanmar’s Moment
• Australia: Lost at the Surface
• US and UK: Afterword: A Last Word on America First
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Copyright