Have you heard the story about Gabriel García Márquez’s 80th birthday party? Gabo was famous by this time, his years as a poverty stricken journalist having given way to his career as Colombia’s most famous novelist. At 55, he had become the first of his countrymen to win a Nobel Prize for Literature. At 80, … Continue reading
Bogota, Colombia – Finding Anna Karenina in the rubbish would change Jose Alberto Gutierrez’s life. It was 20 years ago, but Jose still remembers first glimpsing the Russian classic by Leo Tolstoy in the rubbish outside a home in Bogota’s Bolivia neighbourhood. The rubbish collector loaded his truck with the rest of the waste, but took … Continue reading
The first time, it was 400 frogs in a backpack. It was 1998 or perhaps 1999, and Colombian conservationist Ivan Lozano-Ortega was working at the Bogota Wildlife Rescue Centre—a drop-off point for the authorities who confiscated living animals from smugglers. Their catch that day had been a batch of poison frogs. “The frogs were in … Continue reading
The town of Gampola in Sri Lanka’s Kandy district houses a 100-year-old structure comprising five “line rooms”—each windowless square, just ten by 12 feet in size, was once home to an entire family of estate workers. Though elsewhere people still live in such cramped accommodations, this particular row of rooms has been turned into … Continue reading
Edward de Alwis was admitted as a 14-year-old to the Hendala Leprosy Hospital. He has been a patient there for some 75 years. [Smriti Daniel/ Al Jazeera] Hendala, Sri Lanka – Edward de Alwis was born in 1928, the youngest of nine siblings. He was only 14-years old when a Public Health Inspector on a … Continue reading
At the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, in Thamotharampillai Shanaathanan’s Cabinet of Resistance, there are 30 drawers. In each is a card bearing a sliver of history. They take the form of narratives, photographs and drawings that come from three decades of war, when the Sri Lankan state fought the militant separatist group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam … Continue reading
In early 1996, when Geoffrey Bawa first asked Pradip Jayewardene what kind of home he wanted, he replied: “My perfect house would be a garden.” Pradip knew that if anyone could do this, it would be Bawa. He had visited the architect’s Lunuganga estate in Bentota, and had fallen instantly in love with what was … Continue reading
