Daniel Alarcón established his literary reputation with the publication this year of his widely praised novel, Lost City Radio. Irish writer Colm Toibin described it as “gripping and tense…with echoes of Orwell and Huxley.”

Crossing the Divide

Novelist Daniel Alarcón’s writings evoke the gritty, compelling landscape of urban Latin America

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Faith Healer

Religious historian Reza Aslan calls for a return to Islam’s tradition of tolerance

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Flower Power

Studying ancient botanical drawings, Daniela Bleichmar is rewriting the history of the Spanish conquest of the Americas

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Water Works

Taking up the family business, Philippe Cousteau campaigns to save our oceans and rivers

“I like the idea of the artist going out in the world, creating a dialogue,” says De La Vega (in the East Village with one of his street paintings). “Art is interacting with people.”

Marked Man

Guerilla artist James De La Vega leverages his street smarts to a fashion career

“When I was growing up,” says Mayda del Valle (in 2004, at the Nuyorican Poets Café in Manhattan), “I really didn’t see anyone like me on TV. Well, there was West Side Story … and we’re all gang members!”

Mighty Mouth

Spoken-word artist Mayda del Valle brings to life “democracy writ large in poetry”

“Lending to somebody,” says Flannery, “sends the message that you’re treating them as an equal. It’s a dignifiedway to interact.”

I, Lender

Software engineer Matt Flannery pioneers Internet microloans to the world’s poor

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Hot Idea

Christina Galitsky’s energy-efficient cookstove makes life a little easier for Darfur’s refugees

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Roving Eye

Documentary filmmaker Rachel Grady opens our eyes to the complexities of overlooked places and people

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Show Stopper

The classically trained dance star Alicia Graf showed true grit overcoming a career-threatening ailment

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Mounds vs. Vegans

In drawings and paintings, Trenton Doyle Hancock pits archetypes against each other

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Dogged

Primatologist Brian Hare investigates the social behavior of chimpanzees and bonobos in Africa. But dogs and foxes showed him the way

Playwright, actress and spoken-word poet Sarah Jones depicts 14 characters in her Tony award-winning show, Bridge & Tunnel, which enjoyed a successful run on Broadway in 2006 and opened last month in Los Angeles. One critic called the play, “the most satisfying solo show since Mike Nichols unveiled Whoopi Goldberg and Lily Tomlin searched for signs of intelligent life in the universe 20 years ago.”

Chameleon

Playwright and performer Sarah Jones displays a genius for climbing into other people’s skin

“It’s not unfair to say that we have been completely misled” by studying mostly museum-quality specimens, says O’Dea (gathering fossils in Bocas del Toro along Panama’s Caribbean coast).

Shell Fame

Paleobiologist Aaron O’Dea has made his name by sweating the small stuff

“The more race is not supposed to matter, the more it does,” says Packer (in her home office in Pacifica, California). “It’s one of the conundrums of living in America today.” She is currently working on a historical novel titled The Thousands, about the “forgotten masses of blacks who went West.”

Comedienne of Manners

Novelist ZZ Packer uses humor to point up some disconcerting signposts along America’s racial divide

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Signs of Life

Astrophysicist Lisa Kaltenegger analyzes light from distant stars for evidence we’re not alone

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Net Worker

Where are your friends in cyberspace? Closer than you might think, says Internet researcher Jon Kleinberg

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Civil Wrongs

In a painstaking study of 1960s Atlanta, Kevin Kruse takes suburban whites to task

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Keeper of the Keys

Pianist Jason Moran laces his strikingly original music with the soulful sounds of jazz greats

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High Scorer

Composer Nico Muhly wowed them at Carnegie Hall and the New York Public Library

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