It’s as easy as it sounds in my grandparents’ letters to live a normal life under an authoritarian regime. You love or fall out of love, you go on summer adventures, defend a dissertation. The trains keep running, cows keep giving milk.

Watching Chinese immigrants shouting curt orders to Black workers in their newly learned English was often like observing a failed game of telephone, as the workers’ faces bore quiet offense.

“Writing fiction is like controlled daydreaming, whereas writing nonfiction is more like putting together a complicated three-dimensional puzzle.”

“I wasn’t willing to participate in swindling others into believing that Hungary was open to foreigners…”

“The desert tests the faith of even the most committed. When I received orders to deploy here, I imagined sand dunes and shimmering heat.”

“This is the Delta, where you can look and look but find no visible demarcation line between the salt waters and the fresh waters.”