Eating Alone Together
From The Rotarian: There is a new ritual in American life. It goes like this: Whenever you invite someone to dinner, you must inquire about any special dietary needs. Because today, it seems that...
View ArticleRunning Circles Around Us
From Scientific American When the starting gun fires at the Olympic track in Rio de Janeiro, there is little doubt who will be in the lead. In the Men’s 1,500 Meters Asbel Kiprop will be up front. In...
View ArticleAfter Chibok
This month in The Rotarian, I have a story about Margee Ensign, who went to northeastern Nigeria to run the American University of Nigeria, but who became deeply involved in local efforts to deal with...
View ArticleWhere to Eat Somali Food in Minneapolis
New story at Roads & Kingdoms, featuring beautiful photos from Priscilla Briggs. A few months before I moved to Minneapolis, I stopped at a gas station while visiting the city looking for a place...
View ArticleThe Nation of Poets (Belt Magazine)
New story at Belt Magazine: Photo by Darin Kamnetz One night not long ago, I sat in a church basement in Cedar Riverside, a Minneapolis neighborhood where many of Minnesota’s fifty thousand Somali...
View ArticleSomali running legend Abdi Bile lands in Minnesota
New story in the Star Tribune: Last summer, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey got a message from someone he’d met long ago. It was from a man who had once run faster than anyone in the world. His name was...
View ArticleLife Without Toilet Paper (Vice)
New story at Vice: Photo via Engrish.com, from a convenience store in Japan. Among the many alarming things that have emerged in the few past weeks is Americans’ apocalyptic obsession with toilet...
View ArticleHope in Small Things: An Interview with the late Binyavanga Wainaina
Author’s note: In 2005, I interviewed a young Kenyan writer named Binyavanga Wainaina. In the following years, he would go on to become an international celebrity, author and provocateur. Wainaina was...
View ArticleFighting Modern Slavery (Rotary Magazine)
Here’s a story I did for Rotary Magazine, about the growing movement against human trafficking/modern slavery: When Dave McCleary first heard about human trafficking, it seemed like something that...
View ArticleThe Shape of the World: Essays (New Book)
In 2009, I was traveling across West Africa when I stopped in a hostel in Bamako, the capital of Mali. Inside the compound a trunk was parked. On its hood there was painted a giant wheel and the words...
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