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NYPL Researcher Spotlight: Matthieu Aikins

This profile is part of a series of interviews chronicling the experiences of researchers who use The New York Public Library's collections for the development of their work

Matthieu Aikins is a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine, a contributing editor at Rolling Stone, and has won numerous honors, including the George Polk and Livingston awards. He has reported from Afghanistan and the Middle East since 2008. The Naked Don't Fear the Water: An Underground Journey with Afghan Refugees is his first book.

When did you first get the idea for your research project?    

When one of my oldest friends in Afghanistan, a former US military interpreter, was rejected for a visa to come to America, he decided to take the smuggler's road to Europe. It was the height of the 2015 migration crisis, and I decided to go with him and document our journey.

What brought you to the Library?    

In 2017, I was a writer for magazines such as the New Yorker and the New York Times Magazine, and writing my book about Afghan refugees in Europe for HarperCollins. I was interested in working in the Allen Room at the NYPL. I’d heard such high praise from friends who’d worked there.

What research tools could you not live without? 

I use a program called Devonthink to store all my research. It takes a bit of figuring out but has some powerful features. I'd feel lost without it, along with another program, Scrivener, that I use for the actual writing. While working in the Library I found the Allen Room an oasis of quiet and very convenient for reviewing a high volume of books and academic journals. I loved coming in to find a fresh pile waiting for me. On occasion, I consulted with librarians for help tracking down specialized items, like historical reviews and migration data. 

What’s the most unexpected item you encountered in your research?    

I found a contemporary review of Jack London's The People of the Abyss (1903) that used some shockingly colonial language to describe the slums of London. It was a great way to ironize the tradition that my book is, however reluctantly, a part of.

Describe a moment when your research took an unexpected turn.    

At one point on our trip, I had to sneak across the border from Bulgaria into Turkey. I later learned that the same route was used by people trying to escape across the Iron Curtain during the Cold War, particularly East Germans who came there posing as tourists. Now the walls exist to keep out people crossing in the opposite direction.

How do you maintain your research momentum?    

There are so many rabbit holes to go down and I tend to spend too much time reading things of marginal relevance to a work of general non-fiction, especially theory. It's important to wander sometimes but I try to remind myself that I can't read everything that's ever been written.

After a day of working/researching, what do you do to unwind?    

I ride my bike a lot and there's nothing like keeping up with the traffic down 2nd Avenue to clear your mind after a long day in the carrels.

Is there anything you'd like to tell someone looking to get started?    

Disconnect from social media. Turn off your phone. Yank your router out of the wall.

Who makes the best coffee in the neighborhood?    

The Joe Coffee stand in Bryant Park makes a fine espresso.

Have we left anything out that you’d like to tell other researchers?    

Whenever I felt stuck writing, I went back to reading. The more stuck I was, the more unrelated the book I'd read. At some point, what you're looking for will come to you.