WorldcrunchThis is Worldcrunch’s international collection of essays, which includes pieces written in English and others translated from the world’s best writers in any other language. The name for this collection, Rue Amelot, is a nod to the humble address in eastern Paris that we call home. Send ideas and suggestions to info@worldcrunch.com.
MILAN — There were a few moments of silence when I told my girlfriend what I’d done. I’d kept the information from her for a few days, fearing her reaction and forced to explain: I had chucked a few hundred dollars at shares of the so-called “meme stock” extraordinaire GameStop on the New York Stock […]
Watching the nightly news on television was a recipe for unhappiness. It’s just one lesson from two years on the road in Europe, even though the depressing headlines will follow you through other channels.
MALMÖ — On one of the final Fridays of 2020, I passed through the Malmö airport customs and underwent that subtle metamorphosis from The Swede to a Swede. This crossing from the definite to the indefinite is familiar to all returning expats, and its downside (deflated exceptionalism) and perks (nostalgia, familiarity) are felt at the […]
In the midst of America’s election limbo, our Milan-based writer looks back on the first U.S. campaign he followed — from up close — and wonders what comes next.
From the moment the movie began, I had a funny feeling. First, there were no opening credits — nothing to tell us who the producers or director were nor what famous actors would appear. No sign of even the author’s name, like they showed in The Godfather. But I had seen Batman Begins, so I […]
MILAN — I recently spent a weekend at the Lago d’Iseo, a picturesque area of Lombardy at the foot of the Alps east of Milan, the city where I live. The air was hot and still, resting damp and heavy like a warm towel placed over your face. Dark clouds loomed all day across the […]
I’ve worked from home long before the coronavirus outbreak forced the rest of the world to go remote. When I used to talk about my job as a freelance writer and video editor — and the fact that virtually all my working hours were spent alone in my apartment, on my computer — my friends […]
PARIS — Grandioso, say the Italians. Kolossalt for the Swedes. The Berkeley student newspaper called it monumental, while a Buenos Aires daily was stamping it patrimonio de la humanidad. The world’s popular music critics and other sundry writer types (wink!) have spent the past few weeks trying to size up something that is much more […]
PRAGUE — As I walked down Avenue René Coty on a sunny day in late May, everything was like a Paris postcard — except that my glasses were fogging up over my facemask. But I knew the scenery by heart by then, as I had never left a one-kilometer radius around my student residence during […]
SAINT-BLIMONT — Two years ago, my partner and I set off across Europe in our campervan. We called it Foxy — and it was our home on wheels and ticket to freedom. In France, they still call it “la vanlife” — that ultimate mix of wanderlust and practicality that was popularized during the 1960s in […]
-Essay- MEXICO CITY — Confinement has had few consolations, in spite of all the efforts to sell it as an “opportunity for personal growth.” The good news from where I sit is that I can see beer showing up again in Mexico City’s supermarkets and convenience stores. When the country imposed a nationwide shutdown, the […]
VAL D’ARAN — It wasn’t until I’d made may way clear through to other side of the village that I finally crossed paths with another human: A man about my age returning from a walk in the hills with his dog. “The only thing I can tell you is that up along the road, after […]
MONTE CASTELLO DI VIBIO — “Sei la figlia di Satana! Gesù non ti ama!” It was 1989 and I was 8 years old — and my teacher was screaming at me in front of my classmates, telling me I was Satan’s daughter and that Jesus didn’t love me. I had been looking forward to my […]
Shifting questions of belonging and identity in the shadow of Brexit and EU elections.
A Colombian-American deals with different misconceptions in different parts of the world. Ask him who he is before you ask him where he’s from.
How the current Brexit debacle looks (and feels) from a member of what may be Britain’s last generation of the EU’s Erasmus student exchange program.
The referenda that rejected marriage equality in Taiwan last month was not only a huge blow to the country’s LGBT community, but also a political setback to the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Two years ago, It was the DPP that had originally taken to Parliament the proposed amendment of Taiwan’s Civil Code to allow […]
-Essay- PARIS — Growing up in Northern California, acts of public protest were never far away. It felt perfectly natural for me to join fellow students in the annual “Day of Silence,” refusing to say a word in any of my classes to draw attention to discrimination against the LGBTQ community. My favorite English teacher […]
-Essay- “Germans are coconuts, Americans peaches…” In the German Studies department at the University of Michigan, this saying bounced around as a shorthand way for us to describe the supposed social differences between the two nationalities: Germans come with tough shells, but inside lies the sweetness of coconut milk. Americans, instead, are soft on the […]
While the world is focused on Catalan and Kurdish movements for nationhood, Taiwan lives in the shadow of both mainland China and its own political contradictions.
What kind of a world do we live in, when Turkey can’t even give us a proper coup anymore? Unable to sleep for the summer heat in Valencia, I remember that twisted thought coming to me as the July 15 coup — or at least its broadcast version — was unfolding on the radio. Typically […]
-Essay- TAIPEI — I still recall the long journey I made in 1987 during my first visit in China, traveling in crammed buses with the smells of caged poultry on board. Through Guangzhou in Canton, and the famous mountain landscape of Guilin and Yangshuo in the southeast province of Guangxi, I recall being amazed that, […]
Worldcrunch’s Parisian co-founder knows from up close the challenges that France has faced. Only an open and united Europe can bring a better future.
PARIS — Last month, I made my annual trip back to Taiwan around the Chinese New Year to see my parents. My mother, who is 86, has not being doing too badly even though she has a mild but progressive form of Alzheimer’s, diagnosed six years ago. She has continued to do her daily Qigong […]
I see a wisdom behind the slowness. I’ve learned that he must give the question full attention and respect, and won’t answer lightly.
I live in a small village in the Vosges Mountains in northeastern France with my four brothers and sisters. My father works in industrial maintenance and my mother takes care of the family. I attended kindergarten because I had asked to go there. But I left after a year. My siblings aged 18, 15, 12 […]
PARIS — I first heard the news with a text message from my son late last Friday night: Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen had spoken by telephone with Donald Trump. I cannot describe the joy I felt. This was the best piece of news for Taiwan in more than 30 years, even eclipsing for me the […]
-Essay- I recently turned 30, so the math tells me I’ve already lived through one third of my life. That also means I still have at least 20,000 days to make all of my dreams come true. Speaking of dreams, it’s strange how they change as we grow older. When I was 25, I had […]
BRAUNAU AM INN — With its church spires and colorful facades, my hometown has a certain postcard charm. But growing up in this corner of northern Austria, near the German border, I learned early that my town was well-known for a very different reason: Adolf Hitler was born here. In school in the 1990s, thanks […]
“If only the world’s shattered people carried a sign, a small mark of Cain so that we could be gentler with them, maybe smile a bit more — not to pity them, but to console …”
Italy is, still, a deeply sexist country. A recent murder and suicide remind one mother why part of her shuddered at the thought of having a baby girl.
This summer, I was arrested in Turkey. It was the wrong time, and I was in the wrong place — visiting the predominantly Kurdish eastern regions of the country. For the first four days I was held in a cell in a police station, before being transferred to a deportation center. I had come as an activist, trying to document the Turkish military’s actions on the eastern part of the country, where a veritable war has been waged on the Kurdish population. My own story of the events leading to the detainment is, however, for another day. Now, I want […]
This is the third and final installment of a three-part series “Couchsurfing In Palestine.” Read Part 1: Keeping Secrets and Part 2: Where Are You From? -Essay- I meet Saber in a cafeteria in central Jenin, just after noon. He welcomes me with a vigorous hug, the kind that people give to friends they haven’t […]
The third of a three-part series of oral histories from the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, so close and yet so far away from the Olympic spotlight.
The second of a three-part series of oral histories from the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, so close and yet so far away from the Olympic spotlight.
The first of a three-part series of oral histories from the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, so close and yet so far away from the Olympic spotlight.
This is the second installment of a three-part series “Couchsurfing (And Keeping Secrets) In Palestine.” Read Part 1 here. -Essay- We wake up at 9 a.m. “I need to go to work,” Ehab tells us, implying that Samuel (the American who was sharing the room with us) and I also need to go. Quickly, we […]
With the third major terrorism attack on French soil in 18 months, the question “Why France?” is another way to measure the stakes that apply to us all.
-Essay- There must be an infinity of good stories to tell about the bus from Jerusalem to Ramallah. At its starting point, the streets are well kept, like in a first-world country, and the white stone buildings standardized. At sunset, they give the Israeli city a golden yellow hue. When you reach Ramallah, the dusty […]
-Essay- I am short of breath. My brow is wet with sweat, and my fingertips are tingling. I can’t seem to concentrate. I’m happy, but there’s this idea nagging inside of me that I might lose that very happiness I’m feeling. That is indeed the cause of my anxiety. It’s not the fault of the […]