Alpine Dramas
A proposal to cap the population, Molotov cocktails, book recs
Alpine Dramas
It’s a big week for Switzerland. This Sunday, June 14th, the Swiss will vote on whether to become the only country in the world to officially cap its population, with a proposed limit of 10 million. (Current population: 9.1 million.) I wrote about the divisive, emotional campaign and the history of immigration in Switzerland for this week’s issue of the The New Yorker. The story begins back in March, in the small, picturesque town of Maienfeld, home of Heidi (and of her fan-fictional namesake, Heididorf).
You can read the article here.
I also went on Deutsche Welle’s Inside Europe podcast and the Apple News Today podcast to talk about the vote and what it means for immigration debates in other wealthy democracies.
Meanwhile, the G7 summit will take place in nearby Évian-les-Bains on June 15-17th. The last time the G7 met in Évian (you can still tap the famous spring, by the way, at a public fountain in the middle of town), it was 2003, the United States had just started the the Iraq War, and protestors in Geneva threw Molotov cocktails. Massive protests against this year’s summit are planned for Sunday, and downtown Geneva is currently all boarded up.
A sample from an upscale stationary store:
New Jacqueline Harpman
I reviewed three newly translated novellas by Belgian-born author Jacqueline Harpman (1929-2012). Her novel I Who Have Never Known Men, a blend of horror and sci-fi evocative of Marlen Haushofer, went viral on Gen-Z BookTok when Transit Books reissued it in 2022, at the height of the pandemic. It has since sold over 500,000 copies. Why?
All the answers can be found here at 4Columns (via the infallible suppositions and impeccable taste for which I am known).
New Karan Mahajan
I also reviewed Karan Mahajan’s The Complex, a big novel about a family in decline in the decades leading up to Modi’s India. For lovers of Buddenbrooks and The Charterhouse of Parma and all the more worth reading after the election results in West Bengal earlier this year. Link here at Bookforum.
THE DIAL
The magazine The Dial has published a book of the best international reporting from outside the US, on how the rest of the world sees the US, edited by Madeleine Schwartz. Check it out at your local bookstore –
Stray Recs
And here are the books that are currently on my desk:
