<![CDATA[EL PAÍS]]>

<![CDATA[EL PAÍS]]>https://english.elpais.comWed, 06 May 2026 14:51:26 +0000en1hourly1<![CDATA[Israel-Hamas war: Terrible and hateful revenge]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-22/israel-hamas-war-terrible-and-hateful-revenge.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-22/israel-hamas-war-terrible-and-hateful-revenge.htmlSun, 22 Oct 2023 13:45:11 +0000How can we not remember the sweetness of those autumn mornings in 2001. Like animals that, even when fearful, sense that they can now stick their snout out into the open, people dared to step onto the street again. With no tourists, New York seemed to recover the essence of an old provincial city, one that encouraged a slow paced and reflective walks. The pain gave way to city bustle and, although traces of the spirituality seen in the squares of Manhattan after September 11 still remained, sooner rather than later, pedestrians quickened their steps and good intentions were buried by a furious nationalism that invaded the sidewalks. A wave of flags covered the city. They were displayed everywhere, in a wide range of places: shops, bars, banks, baby carriages, children’s sweaters, caps, dog leashes, marquees, pubs, churches, schools, balconies, on the torsos of big men proud to belong to such a huge country. At night, fear lurked again as the sirens of firefighters and ambulances broke the silence, even though it was known that no one was going to be rescued.

]]>DOUG KANTER<![CDATA[Roald Dahl’s rage and humor]]>https://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-02-24/roald-dahls-rage-and-humor.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/culture/2023-02-24/roald-dahls-rage-and-humor.htmlFri, 24 Feb 2023 00:02:19 +0000Hallelujah! At last there is kickback against the censorship that too often curtails children’s literature. I can assure you that the issue is of such little interest in the world of culture that it has taken tinkering with a literary giant like Roald Dahl to make some in the industry throw their hands up. If novels for adults were subjected to the same scrutiny, we would be right in concluding there existed a lack of complete creative freedom in the West.

]]><![CDATA[Can I prevent my child from being unhappy?]]>https://english.elpais.com/society/2022-05-06/can-i-prevent-my-child-from-being-unhappy.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/society/2022-05-06/can-i-prevent-my-child-from-being-unhappy.htmlFri, 06 May 2022 22:41:06 +0000The happy eighties have been narrated from the point of view of its children – our desires, our need to break with paternalism, with our mothers’ domestic lives.

]]><![CDATA[The eyes of a stubborn woman]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2016/01/12/inenglish/1452602640_014880.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2016/01/12/inenglish/1452602640_014880.htmlTue, 12 Jan 2016 13:43:36 +0000What I see when I look at the infanta sitting on the dock is the face of a woman who does not understand what has happened to her. It is as though she still harbored the hope that someone will approach her seat and tell her that it’s all been a terrible mistake.

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]]>Cati Cladera<![CDATA[The idiot]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/08/05/inenglish/1438770841_989532.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2015/08/05/inenglish/1438770841_989532.htmlWed, 05 Aug 2015 10:55:26 +0000The intelligence of a man can be seen when he is capable of treating a woman as an equal; when he does not feel that his freedom is being curtailed because a woman in his office, or in a public encounter, expresses herself with greater intelligence than him; a man conveys self-confidence when he does not retreat when faced with female irony and he laughs – he laughs off his potential condescension, or the possibility that he has made a fool of himself. A man is no more a man for making sexist jokes; a man is no more a man if he gives the words of a male more importance than those of a woman; a man does not consider his masculinity to be lessened just because he admires a female colleague, because he reads female authors, because he is curious about female issues; a fair man asks why women are less represented in the worlds of work, art, painting, music and poetry. Poetry. Is it not the case that we feel more tolerance toward male mediocrity? A brilliant man should not feel threatened just because he has to share his brilliance with women. If a man has everything, where does this fear come from? This has already been seen in countries that are more advanced in terms of rights than ours: the famous furious reaction of successful men in the presence of women. What happened to you Philip Roth? What happened to you Norman Mailer? A fit of rage disguised as an authoritative opinion: we’ll only let them enter our club if they are on our level.

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]]>Scott Heppell (AP)<![CDATA[Love or greed]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2014/01/26/inenglish/1390743676_737901.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2014/01/26/inenglish/1390743676_737901.htmlSun, 26 Jan 2014 13:42:59 +0000Whether or not Princess Cristina will have to publicly "walk the plank" to the courthouse and up the steps when she makes her appearance before Judge Castro, presumably amid hostile jeers, seems to be the question of day. It is what they are talking about non-stop in columns like this one; and in bars and taxis, and on TV talk shows.

]]><![CDATA[Shut up, sugar]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2014/01/19/inenglish/1390141167_874157.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2014/01/19/inenglish/1390141167_874157.htmlSun, 19 Jan 2014 14:22:10 +0000Everyone believes in the right to criticize a novel; rightly so. Everyone has a right to criticize a film, and uses that right. Only those acutely lacking in self-confidence resort cop out with a noncommittal "interesting." Everyone has a right to judge an opera, though opera-goers are in general more cautious. On the stairs after an opera it is often on the tip of my tongue to say that the thing might have ended after two hours - but for a certain type of spectator, even to suggest that you found it too long is a sign of rusticity.

]]><![CDATA[What those Blue Jasmines know]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2014/01/12/inenglish/1389531674_635602.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2014/01/12/inenglish/1389531674_635602.htmlSun, 12 Jan 2014 13:03:27 +0000The first nice surprise on a Christmas Saturday: go to the cinema, and find it full. The second nice surprise: see Woody Allen's latest film, and not be disappointed. Hurray! I'm easy to please; I now have spiritual nourishment for the rest of the holidays. At 75, Woody Allen's engine is still running strong, and it thrills me to see it.

]]><![CDATA[Why, Gallardón?]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2014/01/01/inenglish/1388588012_285485.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2014/01/01/inenglish/1388588012_285485.htmlWed, 01 Jan 2014 14:55:22 +0000Yes, why? It was not a burning issue. Abortion being what it is, an intimate and traumatic thing, nobody goes about provoking the rage of church people by boasting of having had one. A woman may type, cook, sweep, or pick up her children from school, even as she still feels the pain in her belly. A young woman may come home from her classes at college, tell her mother she isn't feeling well, and go to bed. This painful and depressing operation takes place, almost secretly, in many different walks of life.

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]]><![CDATA[Spaniards and roots]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/11/21/inenglish/1385039095_221257.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/11/21/inenglish/1385039095_221257.htmlThu, 21 Nov 2013 13:08:47 +0000We are funny people. We often question our Spanishness, and some of us abominate the very name of Spain. Yet we are so rooted here, it's almost sick. The other day on television I saw a video, in the tone of a Christmas ad for champagne or candy, in which some youngish Spaniards who have been working abroad make a surprise trip home and embrace their progenitors amid shouts and tears. You would think they had returned from 20 years on Devil's Island. An American wouldn't know what the fuss was about.

]]><![CDATA[In defense of Madrid]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/10/20/inenglish/1382270404_726779.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/10/20/inenglish/1382270404_726779.htmlSun, 20 Oct 2013 12:01:55 +0000"What Madrid lacks is a story." A phrase I read the other day in an article on the "decadence of Madrid." Were this not a buzzword among politicians and columnists, you might think they hadn't done their reading when stories about Madrid run from Mesonero Romanos to Galdós to Baroja to Umbral.

]]><![CDATA[Abuse and the muse]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/09/29/inenglish/1380457357_347073.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/09/29/inenglish/1380457357_347073.htmlSun, 29 Sep 2013 12:34:39 +0000Yes, we girls were more prone to romantic daydreaming, including the possibility of complete (physical) devotion. I don't know whether things are still the same, but some years ago - as many as have passed since Spain became a democracy - high school girls like myself who were crazy about literature would have gladly given themselves up to any real, live author who happened to walk by.

]]><![CDATA[Thirteen properties]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/06/30/inenglish/1372596506_135760.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/06/30/inenglish/1372596506_135760.htmlSun, 30 Jun 2013 12:49:50 +0000In this country we are really into speculation. I don't mean real estate speculation (that too) but just speculation. This is why we like radio talk shows, where professional talkers speculate about this and that. And we never finish a story. Of the corruption cases that come up in the news, very few ever have a clear outcome.

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]]><![CDATA[Resistance cinema]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/06/16/inenglish/1371388110_053427.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/06/16/inenglish/1371388110_053427.htmlSun, 16 Jun 2013 13:09:20 +0000I come back to the city I grew up in after half a year away, and find another handful of cinemas closed to make a total of, I think, 21 in the last two years. Seeing a film at home, on a TV or computer screen, is not the same thing. The big screen is a different experience, especially when the theater is crowded. The emotions, especially in a comedy, rise with the collective breathing.

]]><![CDATA[Wounded beauty]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/05/30/inenglish/1369915799_329497.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/05/30/inenglish/1369915799_329497.htmlThu, 30 May 2013 12:13:08 +0000Goodness can be insulting when a famous person flaunts it. One smooth operator, Trevor Neilson, has created a firm called Global Philanthropy Group to which celebrities suffering a career slump can sign up to support a good cause suitably keyed to their own image, thus benefiting the cause and getting their own picture in the news in a synergy that calls for no comment other than that generosity was supposed to be spontaneous.

]]><![CDATA[Exile and empathy]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/05/26/inenglish/1369576455_182979.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/05/26/inenglish/1369576455_182979.htmlSun, 26 May 2013 13:55:24 +0000If Sigmund Freud learned Spanish in order to read Don Quixote in the original, I learned English in order to read The New Yorker. This publication is a dangerous one: it is addictive. It robs you of hours of sleep, and of time you might devote to other reading material. You risk becoming one of those tired-looking people who define themselves as readers of one single publication. I am a slave to the press in general and in particular to The New Yorker, the publication that keeps me from reading novels, or makes me read them more slowly. The other night I was up late with an article called The Baby in the Well, subtitled The case against empathy.

]]><![CDATA[Pantoja and the mob]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/04/28/inenglish/1367154077_705181.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/04/28/inenglish/1367154077_705181.htmlSun, 28 Apr 2013 13:02:03 +0000The usual crowd of people — free of sin themselves, as lynch mobs always are — showed up outside the courthouse to cast verbal stones ("Thief!" "Scumbag!") at the famous pop songstress, who had been convicted of money-laundering. Then she emerged from the courthouse in person. It was a rerun of a previous real-life show, which saw the Isabel Pantoja of yesteryear wailing and fainting histrionically at the funeral of her husband, the matador Paquirri.

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]]><![CDATA[Always the best who go?]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/04/21/inenglish/1366555623_731262.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/04/21/inenglish/1366555623_731262.htmlSun, 21 Apr 2013 14:48:12 +0000There ought to be a dictionary of the clichés you resort to when you have nothing else to say. When tragedy is couched in cliché, the result is tragicomedy. "It's always the best who go" sounds like one of those phrases they used to say at funerals in films: clichés that ring of sarcasm when the deceased was a crook, a murderer or a nobody. "Always the best who go" had become a vintage phrase that was only heard in stilted speech, or on Facebook, where the taste for funerals has made a comeback. Nowadays you seem to be at the funeral home one day and the next as well, and if you stay a little later than a reasonable hour you see how people's manners degenerate. Because people drink there, but in solitude, like people drinking at home in front of the TV. And these people are capable of the worst truculence. I have known lifelong friends who have fought in a disagreement about a dead friend - who, indeed, had left nothing to either of them, but had aroused their propensity for love or hate.

]]><![CDATA[Abroad]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/03/26/inenglish/1364301884_404772.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/03/26/inenglish/1364301884_404772.htmlTue, 26 Mar 2013 12:45:47 +0000Abroad isn't what it used to be. When someone dismisses your opinion out of hand because you live outside Spain, he is working with an obsolete idea of what it means to live abroad. I never knew the classic ages of abroad, when messages took months to arrive, and the word "disconnect" (though yet to be invented) had real meaning.

]]><![CDATA[Diet and temptation]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/03/17/inenglish/1363530182_933060.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/03/17/inenglish/1363530182_933060.htmlSun, 17 Mar 2013 14:16:46 +0000This article comes in two parts: different, although a subtle thread joins them. This warning is for those who think the thread is bit tenuous. Well, so what?

]]><![CDATA[Something to be glad of]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/03/06/inenglish/1362581648_755082.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/03/06/inenglish/1362581648_755082.htmlWed, 06 Mar 2013 14:56:07 +0000What do you think of when you're hungry? Most likely you think of something your mother had ready for you when you came home from school. In my day we still thought of chickpeas and noodle soup, which were later displaced by hamburgers.

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]]><![CDATA[Allen, old craftsman]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/01/06/inenglish/1357475098_679106.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2013/01/06/inenglish/1357475098_679106.htmlSun, 06 Jan 2013 12:25:44 +0000How strange to see people when you don't expect them - out of habitat, out of uniform. This is how I felt when I encountered a 20th-century icon in the street. Horn-rimmed glasses, a face so celebrated that the cartoonist needs only a squiggle to draw it. On a winter Sunday on Madison Avenue; a woman on his arm who did not seem the object of an obscure, yet famous love. It didn't even register, until my husband nudged me with his elbow. Then the nickel dropped, and the bell rang. The Asian woman, the glasses, the face.

]]><![CDATA[Discrepancy]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2012/12/17/inenglish/1355759284_045977.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2012/12/17/inenglish/1355759284_045977.htmlMon, 17 Dec 2012 15:54:27 +0000What happened recently to the actress Carmen Machi is a good example of how we punish difference of opinion in Spain. She signed a manifesto that seemed to extend a friendly hand to Catalonia. Immediately someone defined her as an enemy to the Catalan people, and called on all good Catalans to boycott her show. Fortunately Lluís Pasqual, the theater director, reacted promptly and put things in their place; aside from the fact that Machi enjoys sympathies so widespread as to consign the episode to oblivion. Even so, the atmosphere is heating up. More and more every day, discrepant opinion faces a moral tribunal made up of irate and boorish Twitterers.

]]><![CDATA[Wedding bells]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2012/11/13/inenglish/1352805473_595771.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2012/11/13/inenglish/1352805473_595771.htmlTue, 13 Nov 2012 11:19:06 +0000OK, my right-wing friend, you can go on believing that marriage is a thing for a man and a woman; that matrimony is so called because it comes from the Latin for mother; that an elephant is called an elephant because God gave Adam the right to bestow names on the lower creation; that if the dictionary has given us clear definitions for bastardy, illegitimacy and unnatural relations, who are we to use terms less harsh than these, just because our social usages have changed?

]]><![CDATA[We need it]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2012/10/14/inenglish/1350216711_246696.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2012/10/14/inenglish/1350216711_246696.htmlSun, 14 Oct 2012 12:12:47 +0000Sometimes in the course of a gloomy conversation someone changes the subject, pointing to the need for optimism -- on the questionable theory that optimism is constructive, while pessimism is constructive only in that it builds by piling shit on top of more shit. But when optimism takes over, you hear just as much nonsense as you did under the reign of pessimism. You hear, for example, that the crisis is creative: you have to reinvent yourself, get moving; if you can't find a job, well, then invent one. And once the spate of clichés is over, silence falls again, and you are staring at the wall.

]]><![CDATA[Don't confuse them]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2012/10/02/inenglish/1349179303_747302.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2012/10/02/inenglish/1349179303_747302.htmlTue, 02 Oct 2012 12:06:13 +0000I have been visiting my father in the Gregorio Marañón hospital daily for a week. It is like one of those science-fiction cities where a single building shelters a whole town. These days, while we hear a government minister congratulating the police on the beating they gave to the demonstrators, and Madrid Mayor Ana Botella sourly remarking on the money it costs good Madrileños when the bad ones demonstrate, the hospital is facing budget cuts right and left: a sort of metaphor of the world outside.

]]><![CDATA[Humane society]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2012/08/06/inenglish/1344254995_595764.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2012/08/06/inenglish/1344254995_595764.htmlMon, 06 Aug 2012 12:10:52 +0000Difficult times breed forthright, hard-hitting opinions. Articles, for example, that sum up the world in 10 points. Ten reasons why things have come to this; 10 causes of the economic slump; 10 faults of Spanish democracy; 10 urgent measures that have to be taken; the 10 lies we all believed; the 10 reasons why the euro can't be saved (or why we have to save it). Hard-hitting opinion writers favor round numbers -- they like to list 10 points that explain the universe. All such explanations are cockeyed nonsense, of course. But hard times create a market for them.

]]><![CDATA[Merkel & Lagarde]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2012/06/25/inenglish/1340626706_130471.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2012/06/25/inenglish/1340626706_130471.htmlMon, 25 Jun 2012 12:20:42 +0000I used to throw out the salmon-colored business section of the paper, like you pluck a chicken before taking it into the house. Then came the crisis, and I began to inspect those pages, in search of solutions. But even the most renowned of the economists have a record of gross errors and unfulfilled predictions; and in many cases, by endorsing financial aberrations, they have played roles of complicity in arriving at the situation we are now in. So I no longer open the salmon pages in the hope of finding information that might offer a glimmer of hope. All I feel is apprehension.

]]><![CDATA[Caribbean week]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2012/06/19/inenglish/1340111624_216103.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2012/06/19/inenglish/1340111624_216103.htmlTue, 19 Jun 2012 13:15:00 +0000The world is falling down around our ears. It must be true, because you walk past the shops, and all you see are tempting clearance sales. Due to retirement, it says on one sign. On others, Due to bereavement, Due to renovation. In this country, the very last admission people will put on a sign is; Due to bankruptcy.

]]><![CDATA[Honor among thieves]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2012/05/09/inenglish/1336571769_610053.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2012/05/09/inenglish/1336571769_610053.htmlWed, 09 May 2012 14:35:09 +0000Justice in the American courts is steeped in movies. So much so, that the impostor and forger Frank Abagnale successfully practiced as a lawyer in the US, having learned to talk like one by watching Perry Mason films. In turn, in a feedback process, his story was made into a movie that could star no other than Leonardo Di Caprio. And while it was going on, the O. J. Simpson saga seemed to be a television courtroom series.

]]><![CDATA[The man who said slut]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2012/03/12/inenglish/1331556181_291999.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2012/03/12/inenglish/1331556181_291999.htmlMon, 12 Mar 2012 12:45:33 +0000Even talking about this is tiring. When the American ultraconservatives tire of their favorite theme - how the welfare system ought be even skimpier than it is, so that the poor can be free of the state - they pull another rabbit out of the hat: the right to life. The rally usually ends with hymns, confetti, and babies being passed around for kissing purposes. As the president worries about war with Iran, the religious right argues that family planning should not be included in medical insurance. A wonderful New Yorker cover shows Obama laughing his head off at the Super Bowl show, as two well-known figures of retrograde America, wearing the same team uniform, tackle and punch one another.

]]><![CDATA[Two in love]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2012/02/26/inenglish/1330259872_035586.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2012/02/26/inenglish/1330259872_035586.htmlSun, 26 Feb 2012 12:40:49 +0000The eve of St Valentine's Day on a platform of the New York subway. There are couples kissing and others not, some luxuriating in their conquest and others ruminating the failure of the date. Below, on the rails, if you watch closely, you are likely to spot a rat. An invasion of them is in progress. People throw bits of food to them, as to pigeons or ducks. And the rats dissuade no one from travelling on the subway which is, well, ratty, but useful and fast. The platform is full of couples. You can pass the time guessing which ones are going to get it on later tonight, and which not. It is written in their faces.

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