Incendiary Circumstances

A Chronicle of the Turmoil of Our Times

De: Amitav Ghosh

Narrado por: Sam Dastor

A journalist who “illuminates the human drama behind the headlines” writes about today’s dramatic events, from terrorist attacks to tsunamis (Publishers Weekly).

“An uncannily honest writer,” Amitav Ghosh has published firsthand accounts of pivotal world events in publications including the New York Times, Granta, and the New Yorker (The New York Times Book Review). This volume brings together the finest of these pieces, chronicling the turmoil of our times.

Incendiary Circumstances begins with Ghosh’s arrival in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands just days after the devastation of the 2005 tsunami. We then travel back to September 11, 2001, as Ghosh retrieves his young daughter from school, sick with the knowledge that she must witness the kind of firestorm that has been in the background of his life since childhood.

In his travels, Ghosh has stood on an icy mountaintop on the contested border between India and Pakistan; interviewed Pol Pot’s sister-in-law in Cambodia; shared the elation of Egyptians when Naguib Mahfouz won the Nobel Prize; and stood with his threatened Sikh neighbors through the riots following Indira Gandhi’s assassination. In these pieces, he offers an up-close look at an era defined by the ravages of politics and nature.

“Ghosh is the perfect chronicler of an increasingly globalized world...Reading [him] is a mind-expanding experience. Once you’ve finished this book, you’re very likely to press it into your friends’ hands and beg them to read it as well.”—Sunday Oregonian

©2005 Amitav Ghosh (P)2022 Brilliance Publishing , Inc., all rights reserved.

Reseñas de la Crítica

“This absorbing collection of essays by the novelist, journalist, and travel writer Ghosh...covers some two decades of catastrophe and upheaval, from sectarian violence in his native India during the 1980s through the September 11 attacks...to the recent Indian Ocean tsunami. Written in luminous prose with unusual understanding...an insightful look at a chaotic world.” (Publishers Weekly, starred review)

Fascinating

It seemed to have a slow start but then I caught on to the fact that he was talking to people who had survived natural disasters wars and catastrophes. I came to see the resilience of the human spirit. After great loss, people are able to remake a life for themselves. It will not be like the old life but it can still be a life worth living.

Fascinating essays

Quite a mix of gripping and a little confusing. I prefer some of Ghosh’s more recent work. But very glad I listened to this.