The issue starts with a great, long, investigative journalism piece in which Isabel Hilton tries to interview Alfredo Stroessner, the recently deposed dictator of Paraguay. It's a revealing page turner and a lesson on how autocrats influence everything about the nation they control. The great Gabriel Garcia Marquez gives a report on the power of the drug cartels in Columbia and Salman Rushdie starts communicating with the world after a year of imposed silence. Christopher Hitchens visits Romania immediately after their violent revolution and Bill Bryson visits the northernmost city in Europe during winter. There's two fine fiction submissions by Margaret Atwood and Richard Ford, the latter the first chapter of his book, Wildlife. The issue closes with another installment of Jonathan Raban's travels in America, and a fable told to Tahar Ben Jelloun onboard a steamer to Morocco.
Despite the big names, about half this issue is engaging and the other half a slog. ( )

isabel hilton bill bryson richard ford jonathan raban margaret atwood gabriel marquez ( )