A Laskari Lexicon – 1
ChrestomatherLascars at the East India Docks London I have long been fascinated by nautical dictionaries, especially those that relate to Asian seafarers (or ‘lascars’…
My review of Abdulrazak Gurnah’s novel of Zanzibar
By The Sea begins with a prospective refugee presenting his passport to an officer at an immigration counter in a British airport. At desks such as…
Real and Fictional characters: The case of Neel Rattan Halder
In my post of Nov 12, 2012, I wrote about a letter that revealed to me that Benjam Burnham, a character in Sea of Poppies and River of…
Painted an Elephant Blue
In my research I’ve come across many stories that have led me to wonder what really happened. This one is about the crew of a German steamer, Barenfels…
Correspondence with István Perczel on History, Hellenism and the idea of ‘Civilization’
I’ve written about the work of Dr István Perczel, the Hungarian scholar several times on this blog. I posted this before I’d met István, and this shortly after…
My review of John Updike’s ‘Terrorist: A Novel’
John Updike: Terrorist: A Novel Alfred A. Knopf, June 2006, 310 pp., $25.00. John Updike’s new novel is set in a New Jersey mill town that has…
A Reader’s Circle in Venice
I first visited Venice in the summer of 1981 (when I should have been working on my thesis). One day I got…
Thanks to everyone who signed Igiaba Scego’s petition!
In my post of April 15 I wrote about the Italian-Somali writer Igiaba Scego: 'Like many in Italy Igiaba is deeply concerned about recent attempts to…
Evocations of connected histories – Kerala, Venice & Guangdong
Sometimes we stumble upon objects and practices that are separated by immense distances and yet seem to bear a resemblance to each other. For example, in August 2001,…
A Hazara Writer from Mazar-e-Sharif
A little more than a year ago I was writing blog posts from Kabul. One of…