The diary of Mohamedou Ould Slahi, a Guantanamo Bay prisoner charged with being a top level Al Qaeda recruiter, was just published (in heavily redacted form) after a seven-year legal fight. The Times recounts that one of the redacted passages is Slahi writing “I couldn’t help breaking in At the Paris Review, read an excerpt of Elaine Blair’s interview with Vivian Gornick, whose new memoir, The Old Woman and the City, is expected in May. Gornick’s independence and severity are in full display in the conversation. “My editor and my agent kept urging me to write more about myself and love,” she says. “But I’ve always known that, for me, love is not really to the point. I’ve never seen how love made people better, stronger, more real to themselves. On the other hand, if I had to live without work, life would be intolerable.” Theodore Ross, who work at Harper’s for seven years, is joining the New Republic as features editor.
