Gabo and the drunks
On Tuesday at five I do a reading in the library of the University of Cartagena – whose most famous alumnus was Gabriel García Márquez – and learn from one of the Profs that there is a crypt in the… Read More
Thunderstorms and a dead dog alibi
Tuesday 4.30 a.m. William is outside the hotel with the pick-up truck for the return journey to Cartagena. This time I get to sit in the front. I must have earned the privilege somehow, or else he is… Read More
Cartagena, the Inquisition and slavery, all in a day
On my second evening in Cartagena I take a stroll around the old walled city, which despite its colonial style and nostalgic elegance is sadly heading in the same direction as every other tourist destination in the… Read More
Ricardo Blanco’s Blog
- A Greek taverna filled with mapsWhat is a map, other than the unfolding and laying out of the territory — more accurately, a representation of the territory — through which a person may wish to travel? Rather than indicating merely a physical space... Read More
- Alchemy, alephs and insomnia: origins of The Blue TentThe Blue Tent is released by Parthian as an e-book next Tuesday (20th August). Since the novel has provoked quite a few questions from readers, I thought it might be helpful to publish the text of an email... Read More
- Varieties of Exile: Antonio Machado, Walter Benjamin, and an unknown teenager.‘Once near a border, it is impossible not to be involved, not to want to exorcise or transgress something. Just by being there, the border is an invitation. Come on, it whispers, step across this line. If you... Read More
- The art of lonelinessThe Lonely City is an exquisite meditation on loneliness, but it is also so much more. Laing explores the lives of a handful on American artists who knew loneliness well, and whose work often references that state,... Read More
- Midwinter with HerodotusRyzsard Kapuściński was a Polish writer who spent most of his working life as a roving foreign correspondent for the Polish state news agency (PAP) during the Communist era, but his own writings, in the form of personal... Read More
Ricardo Blanco, Citizen of Nowhere
