Financial Times • 23rd November 2019The Sacrifice (FT/Bodley Head Essay Prize runner-up) When I arrive in Llallagua it is dark, freezing and silent, save the shuffling miners. I follow them up to the mouth of the mine as the sun rises.
The Economist • 21st September 2019El Alto: High and Mighty The surprising liberalism of Bolivia’s “Aymara capital”
The Guardian • 2nd July 2019Fifty years of HIV: how close are we to a cure? Nobody knew what killed Robert Rayford. The African American boy was just 15 years old when he presented at St Louis city hospital in late 1968, but the medical team drew a blank.
The Economist • 16th February 2019Poetry slams in Basque Country Before an audience of 500 people on the outskirts of Pamplona, Maialen Lujanbio, the reigning champion of bertsolaritza, the Basque oral tradition of improvised song, steps up to the microphone. She stands in silence, thinking.
WIRED UK • 3rd March 2019Barcelona's smart city fightback In 2015 Ada Colau, an activist with no experience in government, became mayor of Barcelona.
World Politics Review • 16th September 2019Gold Fever Grips Bolivia Gold mining has surged in Bolivia over the past 15 years, so much that gold is now the country’s third-largest export, trailing only zinc and natural gas. But as mining activities damage more of the environment, the Bolivian government’s ability …
Sight & Sound • 3rd March 2019Jungle Fever: Interview with Ciro Guerra “In this moment, it is not possible for me to know, dear reader, if the infinite jungle has started on me the process that has taken many others that have ventured into these lands, to complete and irremediable insanity… all …
BBC • 11th March 2019A clear-eyed view of evil, pain and humanity “Distilling is beautiful. First of all, because it is a slow, philosophic, and silent occupation, which keeps you busy but gives you time to think of other things, somewhat like riding a bike. Then, because it involves a metamorphosis from …
World Politics Review • 19th July 2019The Dirty Business Behind Bolivia’s Clean Energy La Paz, BOLIVIA—President Evo Morales wants Bolivia to become the “energy heart of Latin America,” producing many times more electricity than it consumes and exporting it all across the continent.
1843 • 16th August 2019The soft-power struggle is now showing in Screen 2 No one could describe the Bolivian Cinemateca as glamorous. People loiter in the lobby for the warmth, the tickets are sometimes handwritten, and it’s better not to speak of the toilets. But as cinemas in La Paz go, it’s a …
World Politics Review • 3rd March 2019Barcelona’s Activist Politicians BARCELONA—Four years ago, several of Spain’s biggest cities all rejected traditional political parties in their municipal elections.
BBC • 3rd March 2019Raza: The strange story of Franco's 'lost' film Most dictatorships end in revolution, or don’t really end at all. Spain was a rare exception.
BBC • 17th June 2019The best comic novel ever written? “Of all the several ways of beginning a book which are now in practice throughout the known world, I am confident my own way of doing it is the best – I'm sure it is the most religious – for …
Sight & Sound • 3rd March 2019Interview with Kleber Mendonça Filho When Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Aquarius emerged on the festival circuit, its resonance with Brazil’s political turmoil was uncanny.
Apolitical • 4th January 2018The Italian region where 30% of GDP comes from cooperatives Emilia-Romagna is one of the most prosperous regions in Italy. It’s also home to perhaps the greatest density of cooperative businesses in the world.
BBC • 3rd March 2019Art made by AI is selling for thousands – is it any good? Earlier this year, a cryptic press release landed in the inboxes of journalists. Black and white, stylised like the ‘game over’ screen from an arcade game, it intoned: “CREATIVITY IS NOT ONLY FOR HUMANS”.
Apolitical • 9th November 2017Sweden's job centres are the best in the world—and they're private If you’re going to get fired, do it in Sweden.
World Politics Review • 11th April 2019Feminism at the Center of Spain’s Fractured Politics BARCELONA, Spain—For the past two years, millions of women and men across Spain have joined in a general strike and protest to mark International Women’s Day
Little White Lies • 3rd March 2019How Graham Greene became one of cinema’s greatest writers If childhood is “the bank balance of the writer,” then British novelist Graham Greene had plenty to draw on.
Little White Lies • 3rd March 2019David Bowie’s festive oddity If films were made by pulling the lever on a fruit machine to generate a random combination of actors, plot and setting, you would occasionally get a hilarious freak like Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence.
