Jennifer Szalai
@jenszalai.bsky.social
Pinned
Jennifer Szalai
@jenszalai.bsky.social
· Jul 18
How Empathy Became a Threat
www.nytimes.com
I wrote about something that's contested nowadays: empathy.
Sometimes a bare recitation of the facts yields a devastating parenthetical:
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/17/u...
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/17/u...
October 17, 2025 at 6:05 PM
Sometimes a bare recitation of the facts yields a devastating parenthetical:
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/17/u...
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...
www.nytimes.com/2022/03/18/b...
October 15, 2025 at 2:41 PM
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...
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.
‘His books concern people on the margins, at the edges of empire or of their sanity, and the great powers and promises that exert their centripetal pull.’
Jennifer Szalai on László Krasznahorkai’s Hungarianness, from 2012
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v3...
Jennifer Szalai on László Krasznahorkai’s Hungarianness, from 2012
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v3...
Jennifer Szalai · Where Forty-Eight Avenue joins Petőfi Square: László Krasznahorkai
www.lrb.co.uk
October 9, 2025 at 3:11 PM
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!
László Krasznahorkai has won the Nobel! Here’s an essay I wrote about him in 2012:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v3...
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v3...
Jennifer Szalai · Where Forty-Eight Avenue joins Petőfi Square: László Krasznahorkai
www.lrb.co.uk
October 9, 2025 at 12:01 PM
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!
László Krasznahorkai has won the Nobel! Here’s an essay I wrote about him in 2012:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v3...
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v3...
Jennifer Szalai · Where Forty-Eight Avenue joins Petőfi Square: László Krasznahorkai
www.lrb.co.uk
October 9, 2025 at 11:40 AM
László Krasznahorkai has won the Nobel! Here’s an essay I wrote about him in 2012:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v3...
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...
www.nytimes.com/2022/01/03/b...
October 8, 2025 at 12:45 AM
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...
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.
October 5, 2025 at 5:40 PM
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.
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...
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/03/b...
How to Get Away With Crimes Against Humanity
www.nytimes.com
October 3, 2025 at 3:11 PM
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...
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/03/b...
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...
Bruce Lee Died Young, but He Changed the Look of Movies Forever
www.nytimes.com
October 1, 2025 at 12:06 PM
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...
“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...
Opinion | The Right Didn’t Catch Cancel Culture From the Left
www.nytimes.com
September 30, 2025 at 12:29 PM
“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...
Reposted by Jennifer Szalai
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...
How Did Late-Night Get So Political? It Didn’t Start With Trump
www.nytimes.com
September 24, 2025 at 1:11 PM
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...
![Sporting a few piercings and tattoos, Lee says he used to have more subdermal piercings. Unlike regular piercings
in ear lobes, these piercings cannot be removed by hand. If a wearer needs or wants them removed, they must
consult a doctor or professional piercer.
"An officer had been taking me to this room and he said:
'You aren't allowed to have those.
• He pointed at my
piercings," he recalls. "Next thing I knew I was being shackled again. Chains around my ankles, my wrists. They brought me to a
hospital in Miami. "They made me stand with all of these people looking at
me like I was some sort of murderer. It was so degrading. They brought me into a room. They told the doctors to
cut out all of my piercings. "I had already been there for almost a month. I didn't understand why this was suddenly an issue. I just feel like
everything was done to intimidate and torture. "I told the nurses specifically: 'I do not consent to this.' But they put lidocaine [for numbing] on my face and on the back of my neck. The thing is it is only supposed to work for 40 minutes; I was lying there for well over an hour and they just started doing it. I was shackled to the
bed. I couldn't move.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:r2ayah3zrvedki5af3do4fi7/bafkreihimhzl62s5ks64jo3a42joyvc4ssqxjlaxnqdsc34ubp3bpqfdve@jpeg)
Reposted by Jennifer Szalai
"Any personal details we do get are titrated just so." @jenszalai.bsky.social on Amy Coney Barrett. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/08/b...
Amy Coney Barrett’s Memoir Is as Careful and Disciplined as Its Author
www.nytimes.com
September 9, 2025 at 4:21 AM
"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.
The Eswatini government at one point requested a half-billion dollars from the United States in exchange for taking in third-country deportees, according to documents obtained by The Times.
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/w...
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/w...
Man Who’d Served His Time in U.S. Is Deported to an African Prison
www.nytimes.com
September 2, 2025 at 2:24 PM
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.
Reposted by Jennifer Szalai
... and the online proliferation of fake Arendt quotes is one of the earliest and most telling signs of ... what?
August 22, 2025 at 1:23 AM
... and the online proliferation of fake Arendt quotes is one of the earliest and most telling signs of ... what?
August 21, 2025 at 9:49 PM
Reposted by Jennifer Szalai
this sucks, but it will suck much less when some smart editor snaps up Richard
Area Critic (Me) Needs New Job.
Reach out if you want me to write for you! Doesn't have to be reviews!
Reach out if you want me to write for you! Doesn't have to be reviews!
Vanity Fair Will Refocus on Hollywood and Cut Back Some Coverage Areas, Says New Editorial Director
Vanity Fair will scale back certain areas of coverage, including shutting down The Hive, to focus on entertainment and culture, editorial director Mark Guiducci said.
variety.com
August 12, 2025 at 5:55 PM
this sucks, but it will suck much less when some smart editor snaps up Richard
Reposted by Jennifer Szalai
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
August 10, 2025 at 8:07 AM
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.
I thought this passage from Karl Polyani's "The Great Transformation" (1944) was particularly apt for our time.
"The outstanding discovery of recent historical and anthropological research is that man’s economy, as a rule, is submerged in his social relationships." 1/4
"The outstanding discovery of recent historical and anthropological research is that man’s economy, as a rule, is submerged in his social relationships." 1/4
August 6, 2025 at 6:52 PM
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.
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.”
He Always Fought for the Little Guy, and Not Just Because He’s 4-Foot-11
www.nytimes.com
August 6, 2025 at 2:32 PM
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.”
