ISBN: 0-88739-374-8
242 pp.
Size: 6 x 9
Pub Date: 3/2002
Paperback Original
Price: $15.95
|
Nun and the Anarchist, The
Michael Smith
In this collection of biographical short stories, based on his work with refugees seeking asylum in the U.S., Michael Smith takes us into the hearts and minds of people who have been victimized by authority run amok. Stories of suffering and redemption, fear, heroism, politics, community, and, ultimately, survival, they begin in Central America and, with all the irony of North American complicity and benevolence, come to roost in the U.S.
"These are not the stories of people to be pitied," Smith says in his preface, "but people to be admired. These are people who have something to teach us about courage and dignity and how the world works, if we will only have the patience to listen." In clear, evocative prose Michael Smith transmits what he has heard-stories so earnest and compelling that readers cannot do other than listen, and learn.
Only then did she hear his familiar voice. "Only a few of the soldiers in the truck did this to you. They did it because the army made animals of them. The army tried to make animals of us all." Only then did she realize that the soldier was Paris.
The Kaibiles are the elite... the worst murderers, the most sadistic of all the soldiers. The officers are nearly all trained in the United Sates by you gringos. They decided to put me in the Kaibiles, not because I had pretended to be enthusiastic about the army, but because I could read and write.
Bio: MICHAEL SMITH was born in St. Louis, Missouri and currently resides in the San Francisco Bay area. By profession an archaeologist, by preference an anarchist, he works with refugees at the East Bay Sanctuary in Berkeley, California.
|
