Popular Portraits

Beautifully written portraits based on deep interviews with remarkable individuals exploring how they go about living well in their own lives
Illustration of a smiling man with long hair, wearing a shirt, with a scenic background featuring buildings and people meditating.

‘We are all always coming and going’

Steve Schwartzberg’s journey from Harvard psychologist to erotic healer, Buddhist and teacher was always haunted by death. Then he was diagnosed with terminal cancer

by Andrew Lawler

Illustration of a man in glasses with a yellow starburst background mosque sketch and abstract patterns

‘Each of us has a song’

Burhan Sönmez, now the president of PEN International, was a rising human rights lawyer in Turkey. A brutal assault nearly killed him – and propelled him to a life in literature

by Kaya Genç