Kindle Single #1

There’s a lot of exciting news today in Tablet Magazine. Most prominent is our publication of “The Rescuer,” the maiden voyage of a new partnership with Amazon Kindle Singles. Regular readers are familiar with our commitment, spearheaded by literary editor David Samuels and senior editor Matthew Fishbane, to publish ambitious, revelatory longform journalism. This goal will, we hope, be further enriched by our collaboration with Kindle Singles, which begins with a riveting, important story by the brilliant Dara Horn.

In 1941, a young Harvard-educated classicist named Varian Fry arrived in occupied France on a daring mission to rescue more than 2,000 of Europe’s leading writers, artists, and intellectuals from the Nazis. Hounded by the Gestapo, he smuggled Marcel Duchamp, Marc Chagall, Hannah Arendt, and dozens of other 20th-century cultural luminaries out of France and brought them to America. So, why did even the people Fry saved want to forget him? In this fascinating psychological profile, acclaimed novelist Horn, chosen by Granta as one of the 25 best young novelists in America, follows the peculiar life and legacy of an American Oskar Schindler. You don’t need a Kindle to read this piece; just follow the download instructions here. And to hear more about the making of it, check out the Vox Tablet podcast with Dara.

Next, I’m thrilled to welcome Irin Carmon, one of our favorite contributors, to our stable of columnists. One of our most popular columns has been The Diasporist, penned from its start by contributing editor Michelle Goldberg. Michelle will be going on hiatus to cover the presidential campaign for The Daily Beast, and Irin will be picking up her mantle. Currently a staff writer at Salon, where she writes about politics and culture, Irin was named one of Forbes’ “30 under 30” in Media, and received the Hillman Foundation’s Sidney award for her reporting on the Mississippi “Personhood” battle. An Israeli raised in the United States, she speaks Hebrew, Spanish, and Portuguese. And she holds multiple passports, though one of them, as she writes in her first Diasporist column, recently went awry—with very unexpected consequences.

The Rescuer
Who Shall Live
End of the Line