The Great Althea Gibson

Plus: Awdah Hathaleen; Mars Attacks!; Abortion; Miriam Toews ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

Sponsored by Bodleian Library Publishing   Today in The New York Review of Books: On the seventy-fifth anniversary of Althea Gibson’s first appearance at the US Open, Sasha Abramsky recounts her extraordinary athletic story; Joseph Kaplan Weinger remembers his friend Awdah Hathaleen, a Palestinian activist, organizer, and teacher; Nathaniel Rich gets Mars mania; Linda Greenhouse looks at the millennia-long history of abortion; Lorrie Moore reviews Miriam Toews’s memoir; and a poem by Hala al-Shrouf.   Sasha Abramsky Ahead of the Game Althea Gibson, one of the great tennis players of the twentieth century, made segregation in her sport untenable.     Advertisement   Joseph Kaplan Weinger ‘A Life That Is Not a Life’ My friend Awdah Hathaleen devoted himself to ending Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. His killing demonstrates just how little distance remains between settlers and the state.   Nathaniel Rich Mars Is Heaven! Percival Lowell was convinced that he had found proof of life on Mars, but his real achievement was to make Americans dream of a future there.   Linda Greenhouse Abortion’s Long History Abortion has been an inescapable fact of life for millennia. The question is, why do women gain or lose control over their reproductive lives at different times in history?     Advertisement   Lorrie Moore ‘How Goes the Battle?’ Trauma is not a hackneyed literary trope in the work of Miriam Toews. Her first memoir emerges from the extreme and mysterious grief she endured after the deaths of her sister and father.   A River Like Intuition a poem by Hala al-Shrouf, translated from the Arabic by Tayseer Abu Odeh and Sherah Bloor   Thick fog, untimely. A flock alights on the shoulder of night, sleeps. There’s a well of luck. I know its opacity. I drop love words in its mouth: I will need them....     Advertisement     Special Offer Subscribe for just $1 an issue Get the deal Politics   Literature   Arts   Ideas You are receiving this message because you signed up for email newsletters from The New York Review. Update your address or preferences View this newsletter online The New York Review of Books 207 East 32nd Street, New York, NY 10016-6305       Preferences  |  Unsubscribe