Author: Peter Maass

I was born and raised in Los Angeles. In 1983, after graduating from the University of California at Berkeley, I went to Brussels as a copy editor for The Wall Street Journal/Europe. I left the Journal in 1985 to write for The New York Times and The International Herald Tribune, covering NATO and the European Union. In 1987 I moved to Seoul, South Korea, where I wrote primarily for The Washington Post. After three years in Asia I moved to Budapest to cover Eastern Europe and the Balkans. I spent most of 1992 and 1993 covering the war in Bosnia for the Post.

The Wrong Target?

The terrorists who killed 11 Frenchman in Karachi, using a car bomb outside the Sheraton Hotel, selected a target that could lead to their undoing. The Frenchmen were engineers overseeing construction ... (Read more)

A Heavenly Place

It’s got 16 basketball courts, a Cybex fitness center, a chess club, a motorcycle club, aerobics classes, recovery meetings for alcoholics, financial planning seminars, a coffeepot that dispenses 5,000 cups an hour, and 403 toilets. That’s right, it’s ... (Read more)

Looking For Something To Praise

From April 13 to May 4 I stayed at the Sheraton Hotel in Karachi. The hotel is as ugly as a bunker, with unpainted cement as an exterior, and it feels like a bunker, too, because there’s no shortage of security around its perimeter. Private guards, police, paramilitary. ... (Read more)

The Best Drug

Are placebos more powerful than drugs? Today’s Washington Post looks into the medication of America:

“After thousands of studies, hundreds of millions of prescriptions and tens of billions of dollars in sales, two things are certain about pills that treat depression: ... (Read more)

No Corrections Needed

On the flight back to New York from Karachi, I continued reading Jonathan Franzen’s “The Corrections,” and I continue to be awed by it. Franzen can write and think, treating you to style wrapped around ideas. ... (Read more)

A Sufi Sensation

For a dose of sensory overload, Karachi style, a visit to the shrine of Abdullah Shah Ghazi is highly recommended. I stopped by it the other night and felt pity for the photographer who was with me; there was no way a picture could absorb and express its beauty and chaos. ... (Read more)

A Night At McDonald’s

I am travelling with my digital camera, a Leica, but I tend to leave it in my hotel room on most outings; I’m not in Karachi to take pictures, and the presence of a camera can get in the way of ... (Read more)

Calling Karl Rove

What do you do if the crowd at your rally is hoisting placards that bear the likeness of a political leader other than yourself? If you are General Pervez Musharraf, the president of Pakistan, you ignore the pictures of Altaf ... (Read more)

A City On The Move

Things you see on the streets of Karachi: a motorcycle with five people on board (a father driving, a child in his lap, a child behind him, wife behind the child, riding side-saddle, holding a baby); donkey pulling a cart laden with 30-foot steel girders; motorized rickshaw ... (Read more)

The Catwalks Of Karachi

Last night I attended a fashion show, and a few nights earlier I attended a fashion show. That’s two more fashion shows than I’ve attended in America, or anywhere. The shows took place by an outdoor pool at a luxury hotel in the center of Karachi, and they seemed ... (Read more)