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
There was nothing about Karen Lee’s early life that destined her for the job she has now, that of a curator with the Smithsonian Institution’s National Numismatic Collection in Washington D.C. “We’re Czechoslovak immigrants and my family didn’t feel comfortable in museums,” she says, “We were a lower middle class family. I was not taken … Continue reading
In Asgi Akbarally’s family, a car is never just a car. Sitting in his office off Darley Road, Asgi tells us each car has a story. A collector and connoisseur, he is behind a beautiful new coffee table book titled ‘Classic and Vintage Automobiles of Ceylon’. He and his sons Hussain and Shiraz together selected … Continue reading
Two men with the same name: both born in England in 1791, both members of the Church Missionary Society (CMS), both men who would return to England to die after many years in the colonies. One Benjamin Bailey would count the poet John Keats as a dear friend, perhaps even influencing the writing of Endymion. … Continue reading
Smriti Daniel 