An oil painting of a lit candle.

Sight Unseen

A blind expat's musings on life, death and the Trump era

April 26, 2026 | Rome, Italy

Featured

  • Playing an accidental comedian, columnist Christopher P. Winner entertains Italian hospital waiting-room patrons with tricks of linguistic levity and Lazarus-like legerdemain.

  • The other day I was thinking to myself, the way a totally normal, not guilty, super innocent person does, about what the objects that [...]

  • After I stepped across the threshold of the legendary Mandarin Oriental, in Hong Kong, everything changed. That very long journey carrying me halfway around [...]

  • For centuries, Britain’s government has battled an unrelenting enemy that multiplies rapidly and invades the corridors of power of the state. No, not politicians, [...]

  • If you are a fan of lean, hard-boiled prose, you won’t find it in The Florentine Papers: A Novel, by Thom Palmer.  In this, [...]

Then&Now

Essays by Christopher Winner

Termination

This is a very short story about my two children. One is Jason, by now close to 45, and Nedra, who, last I was [...]

Deep blue sea

Smaller than small, I once set out on a a great adventure at the Washington aquarium, another way of saying I became lost. I [...]

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Proudly American in Milan

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Review: Cultish

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Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism by Amanda Montell explores the linguistic capacities and repercussions of cult group ideologies through a [...]

The American Mag

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