Category Archives: literature

“a city of many rivers”

Posted on 8 June 2014 by Laleh Khalili

It is extraordinarily rare to read someone whose work haunts you and then becomes part of your personal canon.  That you wake in the middle of the night wanting to look at the map of his imaginary geography.  The last … Continue reading →

Posted in literature, Middle East, ports, readings, the sublime | Tagged , | 1 Comment

“war, commerce, and transit”

Posted on 29 May 2014 by Laleh Khalili

“Let us have the courage to be crude: let us sweep the spirit of subtlety down the sewer along with the flags and the great warriors.” Paul Nizan Paul Nizan’s star burned bright and brief.  He was a classmate of Jean-Paul Sartre‘s … Continue reading →

Posted in empire, imperialism & colonialism, literature, Middle East, ports, readings, ships, war | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

“a seaman in exile from the sea”

Posted on 26 May 2014 by Laleh Khalili

Do you remember that haunting Conrad quotation from Heart of Darkness that says “The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a … Continue reading →

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The Brooklyn Docks

Posted on 2 May 2014 by Laleh Khalili

Elia Kazan’s On the Waterfront (1954) is often ranked among the greatest films made in the US.  I had seen it when I had been very young but, because of a friend’s suggestion, recently reread the script.  I was rather shocked … Continue reading →

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Factory Ships

Posted on 23 April 2014 by Laleh Khalili

Stories about enslaved fishermen on factory ships occasionally appear on BBC and other news sources.   A recent one tells us about the interdiction of one such ship by Thai police, which then lets the ship go.  Apparently Thai fishing … Continue reading →

Posted in labour, literature, political economy, shipping conditions, ships, the sea | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Interconnections

Posted on 26 March 2014 by Laleh Khalili

Dead Water by Simon Ings is the most fabulously dystopian novel about shipping, containers, ships, airships, tsunami, shipping, and dastardly deed that can happen when vast numbers of ships are circumnavigating the globes with vast numbers of containers on board.  One … Continue reading →

Posted in capital accumulation, infrastructure, labour, literature, logistics, political economy, readings, ships, transport | Tagged | Leave a comment

“Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges…”

Posted on 21 March 2014 by Laleh Khalili

From Melville’s Billy Budd: …war contractors, whose gains, honest or otherwise, are in every land an anticipated portion of the harvest of death…. And he is the inventor of “fog of war” too: Forty years after a battle it is … Continue reading →

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On the interweaving of fiction and reality

Posted on 19 March 2014 by Laleh Khalili

I hate to use the formally inventive and affectively brilliant Cities of Salt (by Abdulrahman Munif) as a sociological text or a total mirror of reality, which is what so many people do probably because until America’s Kingdom came along very few texts … Continue reading →

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The Grey Man

Posted on 18 March 2014 by Laleh Khalili

On second thought, it is not just the atmosphere of terror in the ship that makes Jahnn’s book so interesting – it is also George Lauffer.  He is what Jahnn fabulously calls “the supercargo” alongside his sealed coffin-shaped secret cargo … Continue reading →

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“Terror is stronger in us than delight”

Posted on 18 March 2014 by Laleh Khalili

When I started my maritime-and-ports novel-reading adventure, three people suggested Hans Henny Jahnn’s The Ship to me.  One of the three is an author I hold in awe, so I ordered the book (printed on demand by Amazon) – surprised that … Continue reading →

Posted in literature, readings, ships, the sea, the sublime | Tagged , | 1 Comment