Books I Read August 17th, 2025

Pushing on.

A Practical Guide to Levitation by Jose Eduardo Agualusa – Absurdist Angolan shorts, reminiscent of Etgar Keret. I dug it.

Snakepit by Moses Isegawa – An amoral bureaucrat wades into the squalid waters of Idi Amin's Uganda. A riveting and disturbing look at the chaos and corruption of a decomposing nation.

Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya by Caroline Elkins – A meticulously researched overview of the horrific mistreatment of the Kikuyu people during the Mau Mau rebellion at the very tail end of British rule. If you were somehow unaware of mankind's grim capacity for cruelty against his fellow, this will certainly educate you.

The Enigma of Arrival by V.S. Naipaul – Sort of an anti-travelogue, Naipaul's studious consideration of his journey from rural Trinidad to rural England, and the preconceptions with which we inevitably view our ever-changing reality. The narrative is vague and driftless, slowly accumulating in weight and meaning until it coheres into something profound and even revelatory.

Nadja by Andre Breton – Andre Breton name drops his way through Paris with an incoherent ingenue. A teaspoon of surrealism is plenty.

Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959-1976 by Piero Gleijeses – A studiously researched, compellingly reasoned overview of Cuban intervention in post-Colonial Africa. I was vaguely aware of the role Cuba played in the Angolan Civil War (War of Indpendence?) but Gleijeses does a marvelous job of exploring the Cold War shenanigans of the Great Powers and tiny Cuba's peculiar (and sometimes effective) willingness to counter them. As is generally the case when reading about imperial policy (be it American, Russian, English, Roman, what have you) one is struck by the constant misreading of the situation by the people in power—which is to say, fuck Henry Kissinger.

Tropical Fish by Doreen Baingana – A suite of short stories describing the childhood and youth of a girl growing up in Entebbe. Baingana has a rare gift for language and a sensitivity to the complexities of human interaction across cultures. Good stuff.