When I came back to Myanmar seven months ago, I decided to dedicate myself to improving my language skills. When friends asked me why I wanted to improve my Burmese, I told them that the main reason — other than the important matter of being able to …
Ontological Claustrophobia – A Short Story
So there I was, sitting amongst philosophers, and we were all talking about ontological claustrophobia, the fear of being, that kind of thing. The room was getting stuffy. We’d been there a long time, talking and talking and talking. Suddenly I felt out of breath. …
The Bulgarians and Me: a New Year’s Tale of Disappointment
Well, what a disappointing day the first of January 2014 was. After spending all December reading the tabloid press (and the Telegraph as well), I’d whipped myself up into a state of some excitable frenzy at the thought of 50,000 Bulgarians trooping past my door …
How the Revolution Began
After reading Julian Baggini’s piece on burning the Encyclopædia Britannica in Aeon Magazine, I couldn’t resist reposting this story about book-burning that I wrote way back (as one of my series of Yijing-based stories), and that was published on Necessary Fiction back in 2010. The story …