Oliver Basciano
@olibasciano.bsky.social
Writing, reporting, criticising. Mostly in south of the world.
OUTCAST: A History of Leprosy, Humanity and the Modern World is out now. You can buy it here: https://linktr.ee/oliverbasciano
OUTCAST: A History of Leprosy, Humanity and the Modern World is out now. You can buy it here: https://linktr.ee/oliverbasciano
In Outcast I just put the location of the setting, but (I'm not joking) that's because I like how in Bourne/Bond films etc a caption reveals the quick-fire different cinematic locations in which the action unfolds in the first five minutes.
November 20, 2025 at 12:58 PM
In Outcast I just put the location of the setting, but (I'm not joking) that's because I like how in Bourne/Bond films etc a caption reveals the quick-fire different cinematic locations in which the action unfolds in the first five minutes.
Worked out what's going on.
September 20, 2025 at 2:24 PM
Worked out what's going on.
I started collecting little flags from the places I went to for the last book. I have them on my desk like some sort of Graham Greene type diplomat. On the move, so this is the only photo I found on my phone. I also own an even larger Mozambican one.
September 2, 2025 at 3:50 PM
I started collecting little flags from the places I went to for the last book. I have them on my desk like some sort of Graham Greene type diplomat. On the move, so this is the only photo I found on my phone. I also own an even larger Mozambican one.
Buses retain their romance in Brazil: it is possible to turn up and buy a ticket from, say, São Paulo to Rio, the Amazon, to Asunción or Lima even; as evidenced by my current view.
August 30, 2025 at 2:03 PM
Buses retain their romance in Brazil: it is possible to turn up and buy a ticket from, say, São Paulo to Rio, the Amazon, to Asunción or Lima even; as evidenced by my current view.
COP prep fever in Belém.
August 28, 2025 at 5:16 PM
COP prep fever in Belém.
Sunday reading decision, to go north or south
August 17, 2025 at 7:35 PM
Sunday reading decision, to go north or south
Back to Brazil, with the essentials.
July 24, 2025 at 11:05 AM
Back to Brazil, with the essentials.
Very nice review of Outcast in the new issue of Literary Review: really happy writer Cathy Gere pulled out how leprosy communities, isolated from prevailing political and economic forces, became almost utopian spaces in the latter years.
July 4, 2025 at 11:28 AM
Very nice review of Outcast in the new issue of Literary Review: really happy writer Cathy Gere pulled out how leprosy communities, isolated from prevailing political and economic forces, became almost utopian spaces in the latter years.
A proof copy, now even more well-read and annotated.
July 2, 2025 at 9:36 AM
A proof copy, now even more well-read and annotated.
Outcast and not using the L word on The Times comment pages
June 30, 2025 at 11:36 AM
Outcast and not using the L word on The Times comment pages
Some tickets left for @kirkdalebooks.bsky.social on Thursday, but they are selling nicely. @ismaileinashe.bsky.social has pulling power. Will read a bit from the war in Mozambique, and maybe something about leprosy in Hawaii or Norway: we can take a vote from the room. kirkdalebookshop.com/outcast/
June 24, 2025 at 11:35 AM
Some tickets left for @kirkdalebooks.bsky.social on Thursday, but they are selling nicely. @ismaileinashe.bsky.social has pulling power. Will read a bit from the war in Mozambique, and maybe something about leprosy in Hawaii or Norway: we can take a vote from the room. kirkdalebookshop.com/outcast/
And ends with a re-quote from the big man himself, Lula.
June 20, 2025 at 3:01 PM
And ends with a re-quote from the big man himself, Lula.
Outcast: A History of Leprosy, Humanity and the Modern World is published today. It tells the 4000 year history of the disease and its stigma, and the remarkable lives of those affected past and present. I am very proud of it, and beyond thankful to those who told their story.
June 19, 2025 at 9:30 AM
Outcast: A History of Leprosy, Humanity and the Modern World is published today. It tells the 4000 year history of the disease and its stigma, and the remarkable lives of those affected past and present. I am very proud of it, and beyond thankful to those who told their story.
Great review of Outcast in this week's @thetls.bsky.social. I wasn't really expecting press for the book, but overjoyed the subject is getting attention. www.the-tls.com/science-tech...
June 19, 2025 at 6:53 AM
Great review of Outcast in this week's @thetls.bsky.social. I wasn't really expecting press for the book, but overjoyed the subject is getting attention. www.the-tls.com/science-tech...
Outcast's mini tour of brilliant bookshops!
@burleyfisher.bsky.social
@kirkdalebooks.bsky.social
@citybookshove.bsky.social
@toppingsbath.bsky.social
@bookhaus.bsky.social
We will address the central question of book: does a society’s sense of itself rely on ostracisation? How to fight that?
@burleyfisher.bsky.social
@kirkdalebooks.bsky.social
@citybookshove.bsky.social
@toppingsbath.bsky.social
@bookhaus.bsky.social
We will address the central question of book: does a society’s sense of itself rely on ostracisation? How to fight that?
June 5, 2025 at 11:15 AM
Outcast's mini tour of brilliant bookshops!
@burleyfisher.bsky.social
@kirkdalebooks.bsky.social
@citybookshove.bsky.social
@toppingsbath.bsky.social
@bookhaus.bsky.social
We will address the central question of book: does a society’s sense of itself rely on ostracisation? How to fight that?
@burleyfisher.bsky.social
@kirkdalebooks.bsky.social
@citybookshove.bsky.social
@toppingsbath.bsky.social
@bookhaus.bsky.social
We will address the central question of book: does a society’s sense of itself rely on ostracisation? How to fight that?
Perhaps the writer and the newspaper will forgive me for grabbing a small section from beyond the paywall to paste here.
June 3, 2025 at 5:38 PM
Perhaps the writer and the newspaper will forgive me for grabbing a small section from beyond the paywall to paste here.
In that first pic she is posing in Jaeger furs, with whom she had a sponsorship deal. Second picture, in her nursing uniform; this bonus pic, me in 2021, not in Jaeger, but dressed just as toasty against Yakutsk's -40c.
May 31, 2025 at 2:21 PM
In that first pic she is posing in Jaeger furs, with whom she had a sponsorship deal. Second picture, in her nursing uniform; this bonus pic, me in 2021, not in Jaeger, but dressed just as toasty against Yakutsk's -40c.
Kate fetishised leprosy, as if contact with the Yakutian patients might assuage the guilt over her sexuality; here's something unpleasant about her saviour complex and religious mania. Yet she was caring and committed too – a complicated character who I’m very fond of.
May 31, 2025 at 1:52 PM
Kate fetishised leprosy, as if contact with the Yakutian patients might assuage the guilt over her sexuality; here's something unpleasant about her saviour complex and religious mania. Yet she was caring and committed too – a complicated character who I’m very fond of.
Kate Marsden was a British 19th century nurse who was shamed for her sexuality and sought kinship among cast out leprosy patients in Siberia. For Outcast, I travelled to Yakutsk, tracing the story of how she became one of the most famous, and then infamous, people in Britain, Russia and the US.
May 31, 2025 at 1:52 PM
Kate Marsden was a British 19th century nurse who was shamed for her sexuality and sought kinship among cast out leprosy patients in Siberia. For Outcast, I travelled to Yakutsk, tracing the story of how she became one of the most famous, and then infamous, people in Britain, Russia and the US.
Including, my favourite, her report from the ribald indigenous 'Ass Festival' of the Western Ghats. artreview.com/the-ass-fest...
May 21, 2025 at 11:02 AM
Including, my favourite, her report from the ribald indigenous 'Ass Festival' of the Western Ghats. artreview.com/the-ass-fest...
This post is merely to note I went to a great Izakaya in São Paulo last night (well known to Brazilians but not abroad: SP has the largest Japanese diaspora in the world). Went to Peruvian karaoke after: no evidence of this but a sore head. Proof of SP's best city in the world status.
May 18, 2025 at 2:23 PM
This post is merely to note I went to a great Izakaya in São Paulo last night (well known to Brazilians but not abroad: SP has the largest Japanese diaspora in the world). Went to Peruvian karaoke after: no evidence of this but a sore head. Proof of SP's best city in the world status.
Some bangers inside too.
May 15, 2025 at 6:26 PM
Some bangers inside too.
Hard to fault as a bookshop window: Kang, Mujica, Cărtărescu, Everitt, Marx.
May 15, 2025 at 6:24 PM
Hard to fault as a bookshop window: Kang, Mujica, Cărtărescu, Everitt, Marx.