What I’ve Learned from Haiti
Earlier this year, Blue Ear Books publisher Ethan Casey, author of Bearing the Bruise: A Life Graced by Haiti, was invited to reflect on the legacy of Locally Haiti, the Denver-based nonprofit his father co-founded in 1989. The result was a long essay:
I first went to Haiti forty-two years ago, at age sixteen. It was the first time I had ever been outside the United States. My wife refers to the comfortable town in Wisconsin where I grew up as Lake Wobegon. I learned from personal experience that, if you go from such a town to Haiti and back as an impressionable teenager, you never really go all the way back. … For me, everything refers back to Haiti.
Learn about Haiti’s history and its relevance to U.S. history and society by reading the full essay here.
Blue Ear Books in Princeton! – Oct. 28
Andrew Russell, author of The Leadership We Need: Lessons for Today from Nelson Mandela, will be visiting the United States this fall, just before the presidential election. On October 28, at the Princeton (NJ) Public Library, Andrew will be in conversation with Glenn Frankel, former Southern Africa bureau chief for the Washington Post and author of the classic book Rivonia’s Children: Nelson Mandela’s White Comrades and Their Legacy, which Blue Ear Books is republishing.
“Rivonia’s Children … offers fascinating insight into the lives of true South African heroes, whites who fought in the background against the apartheid regime without looking for any kudos or back-slapping. They were seemingly ordinary South Africans – but as you read you come to understand how important their roles were. It is the remarkable story largely of three Jewish couples and their lifelong commitment to the cause: Hilda and Rusty Bernstein, Ruth First and her husband Joe Slovo, and AnnMarie and Harold Wolpe. All three couples played huge roles in the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, for which they paid dearly, as did the Afrikaner dissident Bram Fischer. They deserve to be highlighted and thanked for everything they did for our country.”
– from The Leadership We Need: Lessons for Today from Nelson Mandela by Andrew Russell
Coming soon
“I started my lifelong romance with batik in Spain living on top of a mountain with an artist partner and a lifetime later, I find myself married and working alongside another. Beth and I have spent the past 20 years treading a path less-travelled together, making mistakes, learning from them, making more mistakes, experimenting, trying new things, going, two steps forward, three steps back sometimes but always open to fresh possibilities and options. I have learned from her and I hope she has picked things up from me. Together we have explored the wide world out there, shared the wide world of feelings and the wide world of batik art. The options and possibilities in every shared sphere are endless; the adventures never stop and there are always new places to go. The world of batik has expanded also. We teach continually and the gospel according to batik spreads exponentially. At the same time, more and more batik artists are coming out of the woods where they have been hiding.”
– Jonathan Evans
Recently published by Blue Ear Books
