July | 2025 | anenduringromantic
1 post published by Gautam Bhatia during July 2025| anenduringromantic
1 post published by Gautam Bhatia during July 2025| anenduringromantic
Elsa Morante’s Lies and Sorcery was pitched to me as a rawer, more intense version of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Quartet, so naturally, I had to read the book at once (Ferrante herself is on recor…| anenduringromantic
2 posts published by Gautam Bhatia during October 2021| anenduringromantic
By now, I’ve read a few works of fiction set in Algeria. There has been the visceral devastation of Algerian White. The incandescent rage of Tomorrow, They Wont Dare to Murder Us. Before that, the masked colonialism of The Stranger … Continue reading →| anenduringromantic
“Patriotism is, in practice, most often a criminal enterprise,” writes Dubravka Ugresic in A Muzzle for Witches, her final work before her passing in 2023. “Anyone who can convince me otherwise is welcome to try.” Words that I paused over, … Continue reading →| anenduringromantic
In 1983, the Ethiopian writer Baalu Girma published his sixth novel, Oromay. Within the week, Oromay was banned in Ethiopia, Girma was fired from his job at the Ministry of Information, and copies of the book were pulped at a … Continue reading →| anenduringromantic
Another year-end, another look back at the books I’ve read this year. For old time’s sake, I will use my five-star rating system, but having grown increasingly sceptical of ratings of late, here’s the key, which is entirely subjective: five … Continue reading →| anenduringromantic
It is the end of 2022. Here, as always, is a brief summary of the books I read this year, organised (inadequately) by geography and genre, and even more inadequately, by a rough rating system. This year was marked by … Continue reading →| anenduringromantic
In 1974, the regime of the Ethiopian Emperor, Haile Selassie, was overthrown in a revolution. Left-wing student movements played a significant part in the revolution, primarily through the vehicle of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party (the EPRP). However, soon after … Continue reading →| anenduringromantic
City-writing is always a challenge, and writing about one of the most over-determined cities of the world is particularly challenging. For example, what is left to write about Paris that can still unsettle a reader’s sedimented expectations, after all the … Continue reading →| anenduringromantic
I first read (and reviewed) Dambudzo Marechera’s The House of Hunger a few years ago, and fell in love with this strange, indefinable, and incandescent piece of work. His observations on language – and the use of English by outsiders … Continue reading →| anenduringromantic
It is the end of 2021. Here, as always, is a brief summary of the books I read this year, organised (inadequately) by geography and genre, and even more inadequately, by a rough rating system. A. Continent: Africa S.O. Kenani, … Continue reading →| anenduringromantic
As with many other people, Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed was both a gateway into science fiction for me as a child, as well as a very early political textbook. The bleak egalitarianism…| anenduringromantic
In the Introduction to his collection of Oxford lectures, The Redress of Poetry, Seamus Heaney excerpts Robert Frost’s Directive, calling it “in some important but oblique way, an apolo…| anenduringromantic
