Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Sunday reading on nybooks.com: Spies and the American secrecy system, writing in the margins, when foreign films aren’t foreign enough, Abdulrahman Sissako’s Timbuktu, and Carl Van Vechten’s portraits of the Harlem Renaissance. THIS ISSUE SPONSORED BY THE KNOPF DOUBLEDAY PUBLISHING GROUP

Scrawled Insults and Epiphanies Anthony Grafton A new exhibition shows readers writing in books of every kind, for every imaginable reason.   ADVERTISEMENT   Looking Harlem in the Eye Darryl Pinckney The first thing Carl Van Vechten’s photographs of black people speak of is his talent for friendship.   A Film Without a Country Alexander Stille What do viewers expect from the Best Foreign Film category at the Oscars?   ADVERTISEMENT   A Song Against Jihad Christopher de Bellaigue It is difficult to unearth love, joy, and erotic charge in a story that begins with the killing of a man, includes capital punishment, and ends with the agonized features of an orphaned child. But this is what the Mauritanian filmmaker Abdulrahman Sissako does in Timbuktu.   Scientist, Spy, Genius: Who Was Bruno Pontecorvo? Freeman Dyson Why does the American public still consider all spies to be demons? Why does the public make no distinction between technical spies like Julius Rosenberg stealing useful knowledge and tactical spies like Kim Philby destroying human lives?   ART A selection of Francesca Woodman’s fashion photography, taken between 1978 and 1980 (Marian Goodman Gallery)   THEATER Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s An Octoroon is a meta-melodrama with forbidden love, slave auctions, and exploding steamboats (Theatre for a New Audience)   FILM A survey of recent non-fiction cinema includes Barbara Kopple’s new film on The Nation magazine (MoMA)   MUSIC An ingenious and thoughtful production of The Mastersingers of Nuremberghas opened to loud critical applause (English National Opera)