Latchford had developed an obsession with the Khmer empire, which lasted from 802ad to 1431AD in Cambodia and parts of Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. In 1974 he opened a gallery in Bangkok, offering hundreds if not thousands of stolen Khmer antiquities to collectors and institutions. Some of his pieces ended up in the Norton Simon Museum in California and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Mr Campbell reckons Latchford may have pulled off “the world’s biggest art heist”. The book untangles the murky supply chain for stolen masterpieces in riveting detail. It began with looters such as Toek Tik. “Cambodians were raised to revere such objects,” Mr Campbell notes, seeing them as “avatars of the gods”. But in the wake of the civil war and the Khmers Rouges’ bloody regime, many were desperate. So they took huge statues and bas- reliefs, using pneumatic drills and dynamite if necessary. (Many objects were damaged or destroyed in the process.) Once artworks were prised free, they were packed into oxcarts or trucks; a broker would get them over the border into Thailand and thence to Latchford. He would find a buyer, inventing provenance and forging documents as required. They often arrived at their prestigious new homes still dusted with Cambodian soil.
Such sophisticated buyers proved undiscerning thinkers. Latchford’s clients gave little consideration to how these spectacular pieces ended up in their display cabinets. Mr Campbell finds that “The Met had been willing, again and again, to augment its collection with works whose legitimacy rested on the slenderest wisps of evidence.” Thanks to the efforts of investigators, the extent of Latchford’s criminal enterprise became clear—though he died in 2020, before facing justice. “The Man Who Stole the Gods” reads like a thriller, in good ways and bad: sometimes the author cannot resist the hokey phrases of an airport novel. Yet the story romps along with dogged lawyers and a ludicrous, devious antagonist. (Latchford could often be found poolside in Bangkok, flanked by oiled-up young male bodybuilders.) And the tale has a fairly neat resolution: American investigators succeeded in returning many pilfered artefacts to Cambodia, where they are on display in the National Museum in Phnom Penh. Mr Campbell suggests that Latchford’s story offers a cautionary tale and that the investigation may have put “an end to the entire US market for such looted objects”. That is unrealistic. People will always want to gaze at beautiful, unusual objects from ancient civilisations. That means they will be
willing to overlook provenance—and the world’s second-oldest profession will find new recruits. ■ For more on the latest books, films, TV shows, albums and controversies, sign up to Plot Twist, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com//culture/2026/06/11/the-people-behind-the-largest-art- heist-in-history
What “Backrooms” and “Obsession” reveal about Gen Z’s fears Two new horror films have hit a nerve with youngsters June 11th 2026 IN RECENT WEEKS the global box office has been dominated not by Hollywood veterans, but YouTubers in their 20s. “Obsession” is Curry Barker’s second film, made with a minuscule budget of under $1m (his first was made for only $800). Since opening in cinemas “Obsession” has grossed $230m. “Backrooms”, meanwhile, is Kane Parsons’s debut feature film, adapted from a viral web series. The movie has made over $215m; Mr Parsons has become the youngest-ever film-maker to open a flick in America in the top-grossing spot. What’s behind their breakout success? It helps that both films are horror, a genre that still lures people to cinemas. But what is interesting is that these scary movies are appealing to the
“anxious generation”. In the opening weekend nearly 85% of the audience for “Backrooms” was under 35; 75% of those seeing “Obsession” when it opened were aged between 18 and 25. Both films capture some of Gen Z’s fears and fixations (even though the main character in “Backrooms” is middle-aged). One theme is loneliness: the protagonists in both films are isolated and unhappy. (A study found that 80% of Gen Z have felt the same way.) In “Backrooms” Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor, pictured) is a divorced and depressed alcoholic. “Obsession” follows Bear (Michael Johnston), a socially awkward man who has unreciprocated feelings for his friend Nikki. One day he buys a novelty talisman and wishes that Nikki would love him “more than anyone else in the world”. Wish granted: Nikki becomes disturbingly possessive and violent. Another theme is instability. In “Backrooms”, having been kicked out of the home he shared with his wife, Clark moves into his furniture shop. In the basement, he comes across an eerie labyrinth: each room is covered in sickly yellow wallpaper and home to all manner of unpleasant things. Clark’s precarious living situation updates the “haunted house” trope for a generation that, across much of the rich world, fears they may never have a place of their own. Dismal prospects and thwarted ambition are yet another shared theme. Clark is a failed architect. Before she is subjected to the talisman’s magic, Nikki plans to quit her job and pursue a career in writing. Another character is about to open a college-acceptance letter when her brains are bashed in. Both movies include acts of self-destruction. In the bleak, cruel world of these stories, the characters’ best option is to surrender. Many Gen Zers say they feel similarly hopeless. The creators of these blockbusters, though, must be feeling the future looks bright. ■ For more on the latest books, films, TV shows, albums and controversies, sign up to Plot Twist, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com//culture/2026/06/11/what-backrooms-and-obsession-reveal- about-gen-zs-fears
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Economic & financial indicators | Indicators Economic data, commodities and markets June 11th 2026
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Marjane Satrapi set out to correct the West’s views of Iran The author of “Persepolis”, an international sensation, died on June 4th, aged 56 June 11th 2026 When it happened, she was ten. Her face stared out separately from a line of grim little girls, all wearing black veils. She didn’t see why she had to; no one had explained. In the playground the veils came off (too hot anyway) to make strangler scarves and skipping ropes. On that first page of “Persepolis”, Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel of 2000, it was already clear that Marji, her child-self, would not be told what to wear or how to behave. She knew who she was: the last Prophet, born to bring celestial light. She had already written her own book of Rules (Rule 6: Everybody should have a car). Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979 forced her to look demure, and she was outraged.
It was so hard to fit in. Her bright, bourgeois parents were Marxists; her head was filled early with dialectic materialism, which she read about in bed. Teachers and preachers held no terror for her, nor any heavy-bearded official who would not look a woman in the eye. Speaking her mind got her expelled from school and into trouble with the regime’s morality police. But why shouldn’t she walk out in the tight jeans and denim jacket her parents had bought for her, or in lipstick, with a bit of hair showing? Why shouldn’t she politicise the maid by taking her along to protests? And what was wrong with going out at night to buy Iron Maiden tapes from the men with suitcases on Gandhi Avenue? In mullah-ruled Iran she lived two lives, but so did many people. In public, men grew beards and removed their ties. Women went black-robed all over. Everyone recited the same politico-religious nonsense, especially during the war with Iraq, when the martyrs (their bodies dissolving into ghosts, with the golden keys to paradise swinging round their necks) were honoured with twice-daily breast-beatings. In private, certainly in the houses of her parents and their neighbours, there could be riotous drinking and dancing; her father once had to distract the police while she and her grandmother, in panic and quickly back in their chadors, emptied all the alcohol down the loo. Her double life continued after she left Iran for Austria, at 14, to continue her education. But there the hypocrisy was reversed. As she grew she lived a free, wild European life, doing drugs, being punk and sleeping around, but inside she was ashamed. Assimilation meant betrayal; by 19, she needed to go back to Iran. Putting on her veil again, she thought: “So much for my individual and social liberties,” with a face as sad as when she had tied it first. Words were hardly necessary. Her expression said it all. Throughout the two parts of “Persepolis” her face dominated the pages, sulky or scared, angry or exploding with laughter, rippling like a puddle as she tripped on drugs. In the simplest drawings, with the tiniest nicks of her pen, the most complex emotions could come through. Drawing nailed them, when writing was too hard; it was, after all, the first language of humans. She preferred her books to be called “comic”, not “graphic”, and she had fun, but the modern history of Iran kept tipping towards the dark. At the most harrowing moment of the first volume, when she found her Jewish friend Neda’s bracelet (“still
attached to...I don’t know what...”) in a house just destroyed by an Iraqi missile, the final panel was plain black. No scream; no drawing either. Nothing. From time to time her interest shifted. After the success of “Persepolis”, including an animated film in 2007 that won her an Oscar nomination, she tried directing films for a time. She went back to drawing, though, in 2024, when she collaborated with 17 artists to produce “Woman, Life, Freedom”, the story of Mahsa Amini, an Iranian girl who died in custody after wearing her veil “improperly”. This revived her sempiternal theme, the repression of women. At art school in Iran, after her return, she mocked the absurdity of “life classes” in which the female-only model was draped from head to toe. Her real feminist heroine, however, was her grandmother, who had endured several varieties of 20th-century patriarchy, from Mossadegh to the Shah to the ayatollahs, and had emerged smiling (once her morning opium had kicked in), shockingly frank, and wise. In “Embroideries” (2003), she and a group of other women spent an enjoyable teatime discussing men, their precious penises, their ridiculous hang-ups, and how to fake virginity on your wedding night. Her sly remarks were the most eyebrow-raising. It was with her grandmother that Marjane walked by the Caspian sea before, in 1994, she left Iran for good. After five years, her return had not worked