Editorials
CONTENTS " MONWEAL Volume CXIX, Number 19 Correspondence 2 Editorials 3 Editor' s notebook: Paul Baumann 4 John Tracy Ellis, R.I.P.: George G. Higgins 5 Go look it up: Chris...
...In particular, there is a religious war being waged against non-Muslims...
...I live in New York and Hooterville, Connecticut, but I haven't written a novel...
...In August the Sudanese bishops persuaded the bishops of East Africa to call on the Organization of African Unity to deplore the violations of human rights in Sudan, and to bring pressure on the various factions in the war for a peaceful settlement...
...kidding...
...Floggings and amputations for such crimes as theft became common...
...A stunning novel, brimming with romance and political in- trigue...a fire storm then ensues, fueled by the enmity that has always raged between the town's leading families....at its vor- tex are the protagonists...
...But in 1983 he reneged, and, 11 Graffam Rd., So...
...The Commonweal...
...Below I have excerpted actual book blurbs from a number of recent publishers' catalogues...
...Which all adds up to a subtle and unnerving inquiry into one marriage's descent into crime and fear...an acute and mov- ing portrait of what can happen when a couple become tired of the life they share and jump at the first chance for change, no matter what the price--deceit, venality, adultery, violence...
...Nearly 40 STAFF percent of the nation's children are malnourished, and, according to USAID, the Editor: Margaret O'Brien Steinfels Managing Editor: Patrick Jordan number exceeds 80 percent in many areas...
...Just kidding...
...When the Vatican recently protested "the flagrant violation of human rights" in Sudan, a Khartoum official responded threat- eningly: "The Catholic church has become the enemy of the Sudanese government, and we know how to deal with it...
...Over the year we see their ideal of personal and political libera- tion shattered...
...POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Commonweal, 15 Dutch St...
...Sudan was granted independence in 1955, but civilian leadership ended, by Foundation, 15 Dutch St., New York, N.Y...
...Lies...
...A "thinking reader's Jackie Collins....Only an insider could bring to life the dazzling and treacherous high-stakes players of New York, Downing Street, and Capitol Hill...an explosive mix of sex, violence, and ruthless ambition that brilliantly cap- tures the behind-the-scenes world of today' s power elite...
...imposed Islamic law on the entire nation...
...Odiya describes it: "Orphans roam the land, men have lost their Doing Well and Doing Good: heads, and mercy is foreign, alien, and far away from the land of the agile gazelle...
...In the South, it captured the city of Juba, displacing 250,000 peo- ple in July, and expelling all expatriate missionaries in August in an attempt to remove any independent witnesses...
...Lies...
...This is meant to be mischievous, and I trust that faithful Commonweal readers will understand the controversies and cast of characters to which I gently allude in these fake titles...
...It was signed into law in April 1992, and allows for the shift of U.S...
...The Virgin Time: Paul Elie 27 Sudanese poet J.G...
...Leafing through the catalogues can also be entertaining, 4:6 November 1992 especially the brief synopses of the latest novels with their angst-ridden, sexually tormented protagonists...
...Bishops have been forced to appear in the capital for questioning and church workers have been tortured and killed...
...The famine victims of Ethiopia and, more recently, Somalia, are famil- Holy Siege: John C. Cort 37 iar to most Americans, but the plight of the Sudanese has been kept off the world' s TV screens by the Khartoum government's calculated refusal to allow foreign ob- Live from Golgotha: Irving Malin 38 servers to document what is happening...
...Or they live in New York and London, or New York and Istanbul, or New York and Putney, Vermont...
...In 1972, Colonel Gaffar Telephone: (212) 732-0800...
...A Cardinal Blackie Ryan Novel...
...Commonweal, [ISSN 0010-3330] A Review of The famine and civil war are the bloody harvest of an amalgam of interreligious Public Affairs, Religion, Literature, and the Arts, is published biweekly except Christmas/New Year' s; conflict, regionalism, racism, conflicting political ideologies, tribalism, and social and monthly July and August, by Commonweal caste...
...Now It Can Be Told: The Real Commonweal Story...
...Frank McConnelh A Media Critic's Life...
...I hope you enjoy them...
...The biographical tags strain for similar effects, and usually read something like, "Alexander Blaze, a native Oklahoman, stud- ied at Bennington and the Sorbomne, and now lives in New York...
...10038...
...I will not be denied...
...Stage: Gerald Weales 20 Q. What Islamic government is conducting, and concealing, a holy war against its non-Muslim peoples...
...CONTENTS " MONWEAL Volume CXIX, Number 19 Correspondence 2 Editorials 3 Editor' s notebook: Paul Baumann 4 John Tracy Ellis, R.I.P.: George G. Higgins 5 Go look it up: Chris Anderson 7 A school for the elected: Abigail McCarthy 9 The idea of a Christian commonwealth: Norman F. Cantor 11 Poetry: E.B...
...AN EDITOR'S NOTEBOOK NOW IT CAN BE TOLD CONFESSIONS OF A BLURBOMANIAC ne of the best things about this job~aside from the privilege of defending Cardinal Ratzinger' s position in editorial debate--is paging through the book catalogues we receive from publishers...
...In the South, the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) Commonweal 6 November 1992:3 was formed and a fierce war has raged ever since...
...In the interest of not arousing the enmity of the authors of the books described I have made up alternative titles to suit each blurb...
...A Maryknoll lay missioner, recently re- Associate Editor: Paul Baumann turned, writes this of a Southern Sudan refugee center: "The scene could have been Production Editor: Jacqueline Dowdell any scene you see in documentaries on refugees...swollen bellies, spindly legs, cry- Senior Writer: Robert G. Hoyt ing children...
...We need something more...
...Once a key nation in cold-war calculations, Sudan has a population of 24 million Shakespeare and the Goddess of and is divided between its northern, Arab-Islamic majority and its black African, Complete Being: Frank McConnell 31 animist, and Christian southern minority...
...In January 1992, the government seized all copies of a pastoral let- ter of the Sudan Catholic Bishops' Conference that criticized Khartoum's holy war...
...According to the UN World Food Program, 7.5 million Sudanese are threatened by famine...
...Here in the United States, Bread for the World and the Center of Concern, among others, pressed for the passage of The Horn of Africa Recovery and Food Security Act...
...Display advertising correspondence should be sent to Ruth E. Taylor, Nimeiry agreed to grant limited autonomy to the South...
...10038...
...I'm as much for angst and sexual torment as the next guy, but squeezing these status markers into a paragraph or two makes for a cer- tain lack of subtlety when appealing to the prospective buyer's basest instincts...
...Indeed, these blurbs are a venerable genre, and when they are accompanied by the usual small, black-and-white picture of the author looking both ethereal and as if she'd been suck- ing on a lemon the total impression induces merriment...
...1931-1987: Suzanne Keen 33 Since 1983, when civil war broke out, more than 4 million Sudanese have been A Far Glory: Robert Wuthnow 35 displaced...
...Dan and Marilyn Quayle : The Untold Story...
...Surrounded by a circle of writers and radical thinkers, the young utopians hope to launch a revolutionary way of living...
...In February, the government expelled 400,000 southern refugees from the capital, driving them into the winter desert...
...In March, it launched a massive offensive, displacing 50,000 Nuba [non-Arab] tribesmen in the North...
...and large, with the first of a series of military coups in 1958...
...04106 (207) 799- under the influence of Hassan al-Turabi, an Iranian-inspired Sunni fundamentalist, 4387, classified advertising correspondence to 15 Nimeiry declared Sudan an Islamic republic, made Arabic the official language, and Dutch St...
...From flop pads in New York's East Village to the Bhag- wan Rajneesh's sex commune in India, from Provincetown to Santa Cruz, he tries to recapture contentment, and invar- iably finds its opposite...
...BOOKS Sudan is today a landscape of bitter civil war, famine, and Pilgrim in the Ruins: Robert Coles 23 anguish largely unobserved by the rest of the world...
...Land of three rivers and fifty tribes, wrapped Beginning with My Streets/Provinces: in a thirsty war" (Odiya again), Sudan reaches from Egypt and the Red Sea on Africa' s Poems 1987-1991/The Collected Poems Horn to the Central African Republic, bordering eight African nations all told...
...Enter a well-remembered figure from her past....the world's most heartbreaking man...
...Then, too, some who are healthier, laughing and playing with each Staff: Harriette Balsky, Carmen Alava, other while awaiting their rations--an ironic reminder of the human spirit, how it Pamela Quatse tries to adapt and create some sense of normalcy even in the most abnormal and misAdvertising Manager: Ruth E. Taylor Publisher: Edward S. Skillin erable of situations...
...foreign aid funds from military accounts for both emergency relief needs and long-term development projects...
...It is to this green, summery, weekendish Atlantic outpost that the [female protagonist]...come[s] in search of relief from the cruelties of Manhattan...
...Religious Booknotes: Recent UN figures manage to tell the story nonetheless: Whereas 65 percent of Lawrence S. Cunningham 40 the people of Ethiopia live below the UN-defined poverty line, and whereas 70 percent of Somalis do, in Sudan the figure reaches a staggering 85 percent...
...The crimes of both the government and the SPLA are legion...
...A. Sudan's...
...It is time for us to raise our voices...
...Doubtless these prfcis are composed by overworked, underpaid, and sexually harassed minions, and the authors should not be held strictly accountable...
...Portland, Me...
...kidding...
...In Bishop Taban's view, it must come from the UN Security Council and from the United States...
...Mario Says, "No "--Again...
...de Vito The cry of Sudan A. F. Moritz 24 Screen: Richard Alleva 18 What is the largest country in Africa...
...A. Sudan...
...But as Sudanese Bishop Paride Taban remarked recently in New York, pressure on the Sudanese government must be generated on many fronts: "Feeding people is not enough if tomorrow they are to be slaugh- tered like cattle in the war...
...New York, N.Y...
...Lies...
...I have a fetishistic attachment to books-- if I can't read it at least I can hold it in my sweaty little palms for a minute--and letting me order books "for review" is a lit- tle like letting Ronald Reagan order weapons systems or Elizabeth Taylor husbands or Ross Perot rescue missions...
...Rembert G. Weakland 30 We must help mercy return...
...Of course I'm jealous...
...That "more" is concerted pressure on Sudan from abroad...
Vol. 119 • November 1992 • No. 19
