Harriet Constable: The Instrumentalist
In 1696 a baby was posted through the wall of the Ospedale della Pietà, an orphanage in Venice. She was named Anna Maria della Pietà and become one of the greatest violinists of the eighteenth century. Her teacher was Antonio Vivaldi… YET THIS EXTRAORDINARY MUSICIAN remains largely unknown today. Numerous historical records exist – she...
The dolphin children
Belkis and I met when we were sixteen. Numen prides himself as the architect of the country’s ‘robust’ economy, a feat he achieves by laundering billions of dollars, via private banks, to help Iran and North Korea circumvent the international sanctions imposed on them – a service that reputedly also rewards him with tea chests...
Jim Shepard: Some kind of hero
Jim Shepard’s The Book of Aron is a remarkable portrait of the complicated nature of heroism and courage in the face of human atrocity. His fictional commemoration of philanthropist and children’s educator-activist Dr Janusz Korczak is told through the eyes of a nine-year-old boy forced to live on his wits, who ends up in Korczak’s...
The sickness
More kids got sick but Madame Stefa still slept downstairs with the healthy ones and Korczak upstairs in the isolation ward. “It’s cold for May,” he said to me one night when I came up to sit with him. He was writing something while everyone else slept. “What’s that smell?” I asked. “The carbide in...
