Stephen D. Shenfield | Author and Translator
Waste and want: Grapes of Wrath revisited
- Published on 01 August 2010
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In his famous novel The Grapes of Wrath (Chapter 25), John Steinbeck described how food was destroyed during the Great Depression:
Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground.
The people come for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges… A million people hungry, needing the fruit – and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains.And the smell of rot fills the country.
Burn coffee for fuel in the ships… Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out [with nets]. Slaughter the pigs and bury them…
And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificates – died of malnutrition – because the food must be forced to rot.
Never let a good deed go unpunished!
- Published on 20 March 2021
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This text consists of extracts from letters written by a prisoner whom I call K. I omit names and other details that would clearly identify him. He himself is willing to be identified, even if it earns him a month in solitary confinement, but I do not want to assume responsibility for any reprisals against him or his family. However, I do not conceal the fact that he is an immigrant from a Moslem country, as Islamophobia is surely a crucial factor in his predicament.
I start with the episode that explains the title I have chosen for this post. --SS
When my second wife came to visit me, she brought games and puzzles and donated them for the use of visitors and their kids, but they were put in the guards’ trunks and taken away. When she asked why, she was attacked by several female guards. They beat her so badly that she was still bleeding when she boarded the plane home.
Biden's foreign policy: an exchange
- Published on 16 March 2021
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Introductory note. 'Biden is following in the footsteps of Obama and Trump, who both promised fresh approaches to foreign policy but for the most part delivered more endless war.' So begins an article by Medea Benjamin and Nicholas J.S. Davies on the website of the anti-militarist organization CODEPINK: 10 Problems with Biden's Foreign Policy--And One Solution. Below I reproduce this article and add some comments of my own. For a deeper and more detailed discussion of Biden’s foreign policy, see Medea Benjamin’s March 22 interview with Paul Jay on The Analysis here. --SS
Community farming in eastern Uganda
- Published on 18 March 2021
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Anthony Kalulu, the founder of Uganda Community Farm (UCF), is a small farmer in the village of Namisita in the region of Kamuli in eastern Uganda. His aim is to end extreme poverty, initially in the neighboring regions of Kamuli and Buyende, by means of a development model based on cooperative enterprise.
Memoirs of Han Hing Quang. A long road traveled
- Published on 11 October 2020
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Memoirs of Han Hing Quang: A Long Road Traveled
Translated from Vietnamese by his daughter Ai Hoa Han
The author was a middle-ranking cadre of ethnic Chinese origin in North Vietnam, where he worked for the Ministry of Foreign Trade in Hanoi and Hong Kong and served as an interpreter in official delegations to China and North Korea. From this vantage point he observed the deterioration in Vietnam--China relations that eventually led to the border war and his departure from Vietnam and resettlement in England, where he wrote these memoirs. He also describes his family background, his youth as a trader in medicinal herbs, and his activity in the Vietminh during the war against French colonialism.
Follow the link from the title to the file containing the full text of the memoirs with explanatory notes.
