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.
Each night I return home to one of the greatest luxuries available to human beings: an empty room. There is no one to speak to if I do not wish to make conversation, and no one to make demands of me as I sit idly in front of my window. I only became conscious of […]
PRAGUE — Czech Republic was the first country I visited that wasn’t either Latin or Germanic. Czech, as I found out the hard way, is a very tricky Slavic language, one of those that rarely lets you deduce the meaning of a word and in which entire sentences seem to have been written by somebody […]
Emma Tobin decided to take a gap year in Africa to work on women’s empowerment issues. Little did she know she was about to join all those women across the world who are little more than objects in the face of a male-dominated culture.
MEXICO CITY — Should we grieve? How should we react to calamities, death and pain? I mean other people’s pain, because your own pain is your business, and you can handle it as you please. But to others struck by life’s arbitrary monstrousness, it seems we owe what we might call a “decent” amount of […]
PARIS — Our usual spot at Parc Sainte-Périne to plop our blanket and sports equipment for a few hours of recreational escape was already taken when we arrived on Saturday. A group of about 10 young men were sprawled out on the patch, enjoying the sunshine and talking among themselves — in Arabic, I noticed. […]
Switzerland-born globetrotter Olivier Racine does things because he can. He wanted to give the North Korean dictator two gifts from his country, a giant Toblerone chocolate bar and a piece of the Matterhorn mountain. This excerpt from his recently publish
A South American writer rethinks the soundtrack of his teenage revolution, concluding that his aversion to culturally significant genres was a youthful indiscretion that deprived him of musical riches.