SubscribeAboutArchive Archive 2021 Select year 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 ‘We Wish to Be Able to Sing’ For more than half a century, the people of Easter Island lived under an oppressive colonial regime. Then a schoolteacher sparked an unlikely revolution. by Mike Damiano A Feast for Lost Souls In Sinaloa, Mexico, women are recovering the bodies of missing loved ones—and cooking to keep memories of the dead alive. by Annelise Jolley and Zahara Gómez Lucini The Butcher of Havana How a drifter from Milwaukee became the chief executioner of the Cuban revolution and a test case for U.S. civil rights. by Tony Perrottet Searching for Mr. X For eight years, a man without a memory lived among strangers at a hospital in Mississippi. But was recovering his identity the happy ending he was looking for? by Laura Todd Carns The Girl in the Picture A sketch artist and a grieving mother set out to solve a cold case. The more they dug, the more terrifying the truth became. by Nile Cappello The Love Bomb For 50 years, Enthusiastic Sobriety programs have promised to help teenagers kick drug and alcohol addiction. But former followers say ES doesn’t save lives—it destroys them. by Daniel Kolitz No Place Like Home In 2005, a pair of ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz was stolen from a small town in Minnesota. Who took them, and where did… by Ariel Ramchandani and Seyward Darby The Snitch In Scott Kimball, the FBI thought it had found a high-value informant who could help solve big cases. What it got instead were lies, betrayal, and murder. by Jordan Michael Smith Invisible Kid Sentenced to life in prison at 16, Adolfo Davis hoped a Supreme Court ruling would give him a chance at a new beginning. But nothing about freedom turned out as… by Maddy Crowell The Lives of Others Two women gave birth on the same day in a place called Come By Chance. They didn’t know each other, and never would. Half a century later, their children made… by Lindsay Jones Cat and Mouse With dozens of felines turning up dead around London, a pair of pet detectives set out to prove it was the work of a serial killer. by Phil Hoad The Gilded Age Gold mined in the jungles of Peru brought riches to three friends in Miami—but it also carried ruin. by Scott Eden © 2022 The Atavist Magazine. Proudly powered by Newspack by Automattic.
‘We Wish to Be Able to Sing’ For more than half a century, the people of Easter Island lived under an oppressive colonial regime. Then a schoolteacher sparked an unlikely revolution. by Mike Damiano
A Feast for Lost Souls In Sinaloa, Mexico, women are recovering the bodies of missing loved ones—and cooking to keep memories of the dead alive. by Annelise Jolley and Zahara Gómez Lucini
The Butcher of Havana How a drifter from Milwaukee became the chief executioner of the Cuban revolution and a test case for U.S. civil rights. by Tony Perrottet
Searching for Mr. X For eight years, a man without a memory lived among strangers at a hospital in Mississippi. But was recovering his identity the happy ending he was looking for? by Laura Todd Carns
The Girl in the Picture A sketch artist and a grieving mother set out to solve a cold case. The more they dug, the more terrifying the truth became. by Nile Cappello
The Love Bomb For 50 years, Enthusiastic Sobriety programs have promised to help teenagers kick drug and alcohol addiction. But former followers say ES doesn’t save lives—it destroys them. by Daniel Kolitz
No Place Like Home In 2005, a pair of ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz was stolen from a small town in Minnesota. Who took them, and where did… by Ariel Ramchandani and Seyward Darby
The Snitch In Scott Kimball, the FBI thought it had found a high-value informant who could help solve big cases. What it got instead were lies, betrayal, and murder. by Jordan Michael Smith
Invisible Kid Sentenced to life in prison at 16, Adolfo Davis hoped a Supreme Court ruling would give him a chance at a new beginning. But nothing about freedom turned out as… by Maddy Crowell
The Lives of Others Two women gave birth on the same day in a place called Come By Chance. They didn’t know each other, and never would. Half a century later, their children made… by Lindsay Jones
Cat and Mouse With dozens of felines turning up dead around London, a pair of pet detectives set out to prove it was the work of a serial killer. by Phil Hoad
The Gilded Age Gold mined in the jungles of Peru brought riches to three friends in Miami—but it also carried ruin. by Scott Eden