Jennifer Szalai

At the center of his bet is that the currency of Argentina — a debt-ridden country whose economy has required more than 20 bailouts — is undervalued.

Sometimes a bare recitation of the facts yields a devastating parenthetical:
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/17/u...

An insightful essay. A few years ago I wrote about the literature of shame, including questions about shamelessness, salutary kinds of shame and what shaming can (and cannot) be for:
www.nytimes.com/2022/03/18/b...

And one more thing: It’s good to see a Hungarian who isn’t Orbán make international news.

I said this when Krasznahorkai won a National Book Award for translation several years ago, and I’ll say it again: This can only encourage Americans to learn how to pronounce the “sz“ sound, and I am here for it!

Jennifer Szalai · Where Forty-Eight Avenue joins Petőfi Square: László Krasznahorkai

László Krasznahorkai has won the Nobel! Here’s an essay I wrote about him in 2012:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v3...

I was struck by that line too. I reviewed Walter’s book “How Civil Wars Start” when it was published way back in 2022. her analysis was incisive; I was hoping it wouldn’t be prescient:
www.nytimes.com/2022/01/03/b...

Philippe Sands‘s excellent new book traces the links between the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and an old Nazi named Walter Rauff — two men who embraced the deployment of state power to torture and murder human beings.

How to Get Away With Crimes Against Humanity

I highly recommend Philippe Sands’s absorbing new book about Pinochet, a Nazi hiding out in Patagonia, and impunity:

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/03/b...

Bruce Lee Died Young, but He Changed the Look of Movies Forever

Took a break from writing about political memoirs to review a big new biography of Bruce Lee [gift link] www.nytimes.com/2025/10/01/b...

Opinion | The Right Didn’t Catch Cancel Culture From the Left

“But the right did not learn cancel culture from the left; the modern right in America emerged as a censorious movement. It took decades for its free-speech faction to develop, and even then, it has only ever been a minority part of the coalition.” — Nicole Hemmer www.nytimes.com/2025/09/30/o...

How Did Late-Night Get So Political? It Didn’t Start With Trump

I thought Ross Douthat's recent explanation of how late night became more political was off. So I dug into the history. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/24/a...

Amy Coney Barrett’s Memoir Is as Careful and Disciplined as Its Author

"Any personal details we do get are titrated just so." @jenszalai.bsky.social on Amy Coney Barrett. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/08/b...

He was brought to the US when he was 12, on a green card. Now, at the age of 62, after serving his time, instead of being sent to his birth country of Jamaica—which was willing to repatriate him—he was sent to Eswatini, a country he has no connection to, and where he might be detained indefinitely.

... and the online proliferation of fake Arendt quotes is one of the earliest and most telling signs of ... what?

Yes — she was always emphasizing the importance of thinking (instead of feeling) when it came to politics

www.nytimes.com/2024/07/13/b...

this sucks, but it will suck much less when some smart editor snaps up Richard

Just seeing this now. Really fascinating. Hungarians apparently still had measurable Yakut ancestry in the Middle Ages but by now are genetically indistinguishable from others in Central Europe, while Finns are still 10% Yakut

This book was so astute and prescient, and then its lessons were ignored for decades by laissez-faire ideologues who ignored the key role played by social ties. I first read Polanyi in the late ‘90s, when neoliberalism seemed unstoppable; his work was a bracing antidote to so much easy triumphalism.

He Always Fought for the Little Guy, and Not Just Because He’s 4-Foot-11

I reviewed Robert Reich’s new book, in which he argues that “the central struggle of civilization” is “fighting bullies.” Relentlessly bullied as a kid, he says institutions that constrain the bully’s will to dominate are key: “I would not survive a minute in a society based on brute force.”

Thank you so much!

Opinion | The Number How a country collects and interprets data reveals a lot about what it values.

Worth reading again: John Lanchester's profile of the BLS (which also appeared in Michael Lewis's recent book, "Who Is Government"). Gift link:

wapo.st/4l7AJjR

Two War Reporter Brothers, 60 Countries and Now a Pair of New Books

Jon Lee Anderson and Scott Anderson are brothers who try not to be in the same war zone at the same time, but I caught up with them while they both happened to be in New Jersey. We talked about their unconventional lives and their unconventional upbringing.

A regal cat named Hank, known as the regional manager of the Literary Cat Co. in Pittsburg, Kansas

I mean:

At Bear Pond Books in Montpelier, Vt., a Russian desert tortoise named Veruca Salt

Murphy Grace and Whiskey Sue of Double Dog Bookshop in Wentzville, Mo.

Great photos, too: