Horse-latitudes
Amitav Ghosh‘Horse-latitudes. A space between the westerly winds of higher latitudes and the trade-winds, notorious for tedious calms. The name arose from our old navigators often throwing the horses overboard…
Sacred Trash
Sacred Trash: The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza, by Adina Hoffman and Peter Cole, Schocken, New York, 2011. The story of the Cairo Geniza – that…
Angkor, Interview: 2
Angkor Diaries, January 1993 Interview with Mr. Pich Keo, archaeologist and curator (part 2). Q. When you arrived in Angkor on the 15th of January, 1979, what was it…
Angkor, Interview: 1
January 1993 Interview with Mr. Pich Keo, archaeologist and curator. Mr Pich Keo: I finished my studies in 1971; I have a degree in science d’archaéologie. In 1973 I…
Debbie’s book
'The Convert' just released in New York. 'Mesmerizing' - New York Times Book Review. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/22/books/review/book-review-the-convert-by-deborah-baker.html?_r=1&ref=review
Stand corrected
Re my last post: Thomas Abraham writes: 'Don’t know if you’ve seen this but saradindu badyopadhyay was published by Puffin –quite some time ago, when I was at Penguin. http://www.bookadda.com/product/band-soldiers-saradindu-bandyopadhyay/p-9780143335085-0143335081'…
Two Bengali Writers
It’s clear that the emergence of a vibrant new industry of translation is transforming the literary landscape of India. At an airport bookshop the other day I was delighted…
Foreign Devil
Top-hatted, tail-coated temple guardian, Phnom Penh, 1993.
Henry Mayhew
Henry Mayhew was the Studs Terkel of the 19th century: I find his ‘London Labour and the London Poor’ (published 1851) more interesting even than Orwell’s Down and Out…
Mekong Journals – Jan 9, 2003
In January 2003 I accompanied an expedition that was conducting a survey of river dolphins on a stretch of the Mekong River in Cambodia. The expedition was led by Isabel…