Foreword / Robert Atwan -- Introduction / Alan Lightman -- The last time I saw Paris / André Aciman -- In distrust of movements / Wendell Berry -- The joys and perils of victimhood / Ian Buruma -- A son in shadow / Fred D'Aguiar -- Westbury court / Edwidge Danticat -- In defense of the book / William H. Gass -- Rome : the visible city / Mary Gordon -- Earth's eye / Edward Hoagland -- Those words that echo ... echo ... echo ... through life / Jamaica Kincaid -- If you are what you eat, then what am I? / Geeta Kothari -- The resurrectionist / Richard McCann -- The synthetic sublime / Cynthia Ozick -- The force of spirit / Scott Russell Sanders -- At a certain age / Lynne Sharon Schwartz -- The Singer solution to world poverty / Peter Singer -- Gray area : thinking with a damaged brain / Floyd Skloot -- Listening for silence / Mark Slouka -- Heroin/e / Cheryl Strayed -- What's so bad about hate? / Andrew Sullivan -- A designer universe? / Steven Weinberg -- A shark in the mind of one contemplating wilderness / Terry Tempest Williams -- Biographical notes -- Notable essays of 1999.