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We were going to tour Himeji Castle, Japan’s largest, most visited castle, a distinctive, shiny white structure in the town of Himeji, a train ride from Osaka, where we had put ourselves for a couple of days during a longer self-guided tour of Japan. For Himeji Castle, we’d booked an English-language tour guide, who said he would meet us at the train station. We almost never book tour guides but this one was offered by the on-line service through which we got the tickets for the castle. So, why not?

More than 80 languages are spoken on the campus of George Mason University. So, what better place for a Day of Translation? It’s an annual event sponsored by the Alan Cheuse International Writers Center, which is named for the late NPR book critic, author, professor, and, back more than 25 years ago, my MFA thesis advisor.

Matthew Davis’s new book, A Biography of a Mountain: The Making and Meaning of Mount Rushmore, was published by Macmillan in November 2025. The book offers a full history of Mount Rushmore: from its beginnings as sacred Lakota land to the political decisions that led to the carving of the presidential faces. Davis traces the monument’s geology, the controversies surrounding its creation, and the shifting cultural meaning it has carried into its 100th year.

I met Kwiatkowksi over a series of events in September and October of 2025, as he traveled in the US with the Cheuse Center at George Mason University and Yale University. Grzegorz Kwiatkowksi is the Cheuse Center’s Visiting Writer from Poland, and the center is collaborating with him on a series of events that mark the tenth anniversary of the Cheuse Center, founded in 2016. The center was named after Alan Cheuse, whose father was a Jewish refugee to America, from Stalin’s Russia (now Ukraine).

It was fun doing a book conversation with Olufemi Terry on October 19, 2025. Perhaps it was the venue—I’ve always enjoyed doing readings at the 14th Street Busboys and Poets. The event’s room, with pictures of Gandhi, MLK and other inspirational figures on the walls, makes one feel a sense of high seriousness and purpose. A surprise, Olufemi Terry’s parents, on the verge of their 90s, were there to lend their support to their son’s debut novel. The event was organized by the Cheuse Center and its director, Leeya Mehta, did the introductions. Most of its board members were there, including Kris O’Shee, the late Alan Cheuse’s wife. 

Olufemi Terry talks about his novel Wilderness of Mirrors with William "Bill" Miller on the Upstart Crow podcast, revealing the influence of Freud, and living in Germany, and it's impact on his writing and the provenance of his characters.

In Lviv this summer, my son and I had some of the most spectacular meals of our lives. Salads arrived garnished with fresh flowers. Pastries floated by us adorned with fragrant wild berries gathered by hand or a special wooden comb in forests unblemished by mines. We were offered mint drinks, locally sourced rose petal ice cream, and lemonade with crushed sea buckhorn. This same summer, people just like us in cities just like ours were blown to pieces by rockets, drones, bombs.