iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Oliver Basciano @olibasciano.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Well this is depressing so far. 🇧🇷

Oliver Basciano @olibasciano.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Given half of Outcast was written in the Wellcome Collection's special collections room – where I sifted through piles of spidery-written colonial-era memos and letters – it is heartening to see the book now in the library.

Outcast on a freestanding carousel of books, marked with the sign 'New Arrivals', at the entrance of the library.

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Oliver Basciano @olibasciano.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Appeared on the Observer's Slow Newscast podcast, talking my story on about Russia's spy operation in Brazil and one very bad boyfriend. observer.co.uk/listen/the-s...

observer.co.uk

How I fell in love with a Russian spy | The Observer

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The BREAK—DOWN @the-breakdown.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

As the planet warms, scientists are preparing for the spread of new and potentially lethal diseases. 🛢️ ’On the Hunt for Disease X’ by OLIVER BASCIANO SUBSCRIBE to read the full essay on our website www.break-down.org/on-the-hunt-...

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Isaac Samuel @rhaplord.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Queens and Kings of the Congados, Brazil by Carlos Julião 1775-1790 www.patreon.com/isaacsamuel6...

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Oliver Basciano @olibasciano.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

For three years Stephanie Arcanjo dated Eric. He met her daughter, they lived together, opened a business. Except ‘Eric' was Aleksandr Andreyevich Utekhin, a Russian spy using Brazil – and her – to ‘wash’ his identity. Me, for the @theobserveruk.bsky.social: observer.co.uk/news/interna...

Screen grab of online version of the article with picture showing the couple eating at a restaurant in Dubai, the last place Stephanie saw "Eric".

Brazil
The Russian spy in my bed
Over three years, Stephanie Arcanjo built a home with her boyfriend, Eric. Then one day he vanished, and the police came knocking, Oliver Basciano reports

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The Observer @theobserveruk.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

The Russian spy in my bed For more than three years Stephanie Arcanjo dated a man she knew as Eric. She has told the story enough times to the federal police. Because Eric was a Russian spy using Brazil – and her – to “wash” his identity, reports Oliver Basciano bit.ly/4yNcFds

bit.ly

‘I fell in love with a Russian spy’: the Brazilian woman ...

Over three years, Stephanie Arcanjo built a home with her boyfriend, Eric. Then one day he vanished, and the police came knocking

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Oliver Basciano @olibasciano.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

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ben @benrs.uk · 17/09/2026

good morning

APStylebook • @APStylebook • 16h

We recommend avoiding general and often dehumanizing "the" labels such as the poor, the mentally ill, the French, the disabled, the college-educated. Instead, use wording such as people with mental illnesses. And use these descriptions only when clearly relevant.

AP The Associated Press
Replying to @APStylebook

The use of "the French" in this tweet by @AP was inappropriate and has caused unintended offense. An updated tweet is upcoming.

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Oliver Basciano @olibasciano.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Reading Mathilda Laska some true life crime (from The Death of the Clinic, by Benoît Loiseau).

Excerpt from The Death of the Clinic, by Benoît Loiseau:

"On his morning commute to the Collège de France, Claude Bernard - the father of experimental medicine - routinely picked up stray dogs for his laboratory experiments. On one occasion, he accidentally abducted the beloved pet of the local police superinten-dent, who did not appreciate having it returned in pieces. A hefty fine did little to deter Bernard - . his curiosity was insatiable. So much so that his wife Fanny eventually left him after walking in on him dissecting the family dog on their kitchen table."

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Sojourners @sojo.net · 12/08/2026

Through immersive global reporting, Oliver Basciano explores the stigma of leprosy throughout history into modern times, showing how this stigma was “used as the blueprint for other forms of discrimination.” sojo.net/articles/cul...

sojo.net

How Christians Learned the Wrong Story About Leprosy

Oliver Basciano’s ‘Outcast’ takes a historical look at ‘the disease iconic of Christian charity,’ shifting the lens to the patients themselves.

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Sojourners @sojo.net · 13/08/2026

If anti-leprosy laws and programs were blueprints for “segregation and subjugation,” Oliver Basciano writes, “then the fight and spirit of the patients offers us a vision of a world mended through care and reparation.” sojo.net/articles/cul...

sojo.net

How Christians Learned the Wrong Story About Leprosy

Oliver Basciano’s ‘Outcast’ takes a historical look at ‘the disease iconic of Christian charity,’ shifting the lens to the patients themselves.

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Oliver Basciano @olibasciano.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

If you see me giving side eye and archly hissing "THE CULL IS PEERY" about someone, then this is to blame.

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John Merrick @johnmerrick.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

For the latest BREAK–DOWN podcast, i interviewed Guillaume Long about Latin America's rightward shift and the long history of US imperialism in the region –– and what all this means for the climate movement there and globally

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Oliver Basciano @olibasciano.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Nice review of Outcast in progressive Christian mag @sojo.net sojo.net/articles/cul...

One day, after washing the feet and hands of men and women with leprosy, Angela of Foligno, the 13th-century saint and mystic, ate a leperous sore. “We drank the very water with which we had washed him,” she writes. “And the drink was so sweet that, all the way home, we tasted its sweetness and it was as if we had received Holy Communion. As a small scale of the leper’s sores was stuck in my throat, I tried to swallow it. My conscience would not let me spit it out, just as if I had received Holy Communion.”

On the one hand, it’s a radical testament: that all bodies are holy, and those most marginalized and considered “unclean” are Christ’s truest flesh. But on the other hand—what was the man with leprosy thinking in that moment as he watched Angela do this? What was his story, his life, his human experience that Angela saw as a gateway to God?

It’s these questions, in part, that led me to Outcast: A History of Leprosy, Humanity, and the Modern World (Graywolf Press). Published in the U.S. in July, journalist Oliver Basciano shifts the reader’s focus to the dignity of leprosy patients themselves, and how they have long been fighting for their agency and freedom.

.... continued in link

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ArtReview @artreview.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

The central question of ‘The Savage Landscape’ is whether any true “wilderness” still exists on this earth, writes Oliver Basciano.

artreview.com

‘The Savage Landscape: How We Made the Wilderness’ by Cal Flyn, Reviewed

Does any true wilderness still exist on this earth?

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Oliver Basciano @olibasciano.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

Violent deaths in Brazil are at their lowest level in 14 years: Though the cops are still killing an average of 18 people a day (accounting for over 16 percent of the total 40,775). www1.folha.uol.com.br/cotidiano/20...

www1.folha.uol.com.br

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Oliver Basciano @olibasciano.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

US sugar barons used leprosy to appropriate indigenous Hawaiian land; accusing local farmers of having the disease, getting them locked up, taking their plots. The legacy can be found on Wall St today. Excerpted by @literaryhub.bsky.social, a dastardly story from Outcast lithub.com/how-leprosy-...

lithub.com

How Leprosy Was Used as a Weapon Against Hawaii’s Indigenous Population

Father Damien was a dirty man. Everyone agreed on that. Dirt would accumulate under his fingernails; he rarely washed his hands. His clothes—his habitual cassock and wide-brimmed hat—were worn for …

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Oliver Basciano @olibasciano.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

lithub.com

How Leprosy Was Used as a Weapon Against Hawaii’s Indigenous Population

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Monica H Green @monicamedhist.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Oh wow! This is a big deal in leprosy studies. The 1st aDNA genomes from Asia: "the observed phylogeographical patterns are consistent with the hypothesis that this lineage originated in southern East Asia." Branch 0 is documented in Asia, medieval Europe & Oceania. www.nature.com/articles/s42...

Fu et al. 2026 figure 2A: "Geographic distribution and phylogenetic relationships of Branch 0 M. leprae strains. A The map shows the sampling locations and inferred dispersal routes of M. leprae Branch 0 lineages across Eurasia and the Pacific Islands. Arrows indicate hypothesized migration routes and do not represent directly observed movements. The basemap used in this figure is in the public domain and accessible through the Natural Earth website (https://www.naturalearthdata.com/downloads/10m-raster-data/)."

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Oliver Basciano @olibasciano.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

So @lucymercer.bsky.social 's 11-year-old son Arthur won the Whatsapp group sweepstakes. All is right and just in that little corner of the world.

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Lewis Baston @lewisbaston.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

Operation Condor lives again and the US under Trump is openly organising it.

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Felicity Hannah @felicityhannah.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

My son just told me is favourite sentence is: “I didn’t say we should kill him” because if you emphasise each different word it changes the entire meaning

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Oliver Basciano @olibasciano.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

It's going to be Trump holding Milei's hand as he climbs the trophy podium on Sunday right?

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World Literature Today @worldlittoday.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

“The word ‘leprosy’ has become divorced from the disease, slipping into a synonym for anything or anyone shunned or cast beyond the pale of society.” Our July issue features a short Q&A with Oliver Basciano, author of Utcast. @olibasciano.bsky.social worldliteraturetoday.org/2026/july/re...

A photo of Oliver Basciano sits next to the cover of his book, Utcast: A History of Leprosy, Human, and the Modern World.

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Oliver Basciano @olibasciano.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

Folha has a thing that tells Brazilians who to support in the Copa now they're out, decided via countries colonised, gay rights, CO2 emissions, your favourite authors. Not entirely faultless: ie, Spain conquered more countries, but, come on, Belgium in Congo... www1.folha.uol.com.br/esporte/folh...

www1.folha.uol.com.br

Match da Copa do Mundo 2026 | Folha Stats | Folha

Faça o quiz e veja para qual seleção de futebol você deve torcer a partir de informações como colonização, economia, ambiente e direitos LGBTQIA+.

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Oliver Basciano @olibasciano.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Sad to hear of Shahrnush Parsipur's death, she gave her last interview to Shirin Neshat, sometime collaborator, for @artreview.bsky.social a week or so ago. Speaking in typically forthright manner on Iran, America, how she was done with writing. artreview.com/the-intervie...

artreview.com

The Interview: Shirin Neshat & Shahrnush Parsipur

“Women in Iran are the second sex, not the first sex, and that has not changed. Iranian women still face the same problems they have always had”

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Oliver Basciano @olibasciano.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

I am sad and my Brazilian dog is furious

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Oliver Basciano @olibasciano.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

Cabo Verde para os livros de história

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Andrei @theuntranslated.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

In his recent interview Cărtărescu reveals that his work in progress is going to be a long text after all, and that it is going to be “a very bizarre book”.

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Oliver Basciano @olibasciano.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Publication week starred review in Publishers Weekly for Outcast. Out in the US with @graywolfpress.bsky.social on 7 July.

Review of Outcast, alongside the book's cover: "The stigma of leprosy, also known as Hansen’s disease, became “a blueprint for other forms of discrimination,” argues journalist and critic Basciano in this striking debut. He begins by ruminating on the present moment, when he sees “the othering of the immigrant” as frequently relying on metaphors of “contagion,” if not leprosy outright. From there, he surveys leprosy’s lengthy history. Hansen’s disease is not as infectious as once believed (95% of people are naturally immune), meaning that fear of leprosy has historically had less to do with the scope of the threat, and more to do with how the disease became bound up with identity, as lepers were cast out of their homes and forced into leper colonies. This colony system led to abuses, with those seen as undesirable for other reasons more easily swept up. “Leprosy has become a geography,” Basciano writes, “the world divided into ever-shifting territories of the unclean and clean.” He traces thinking about the disease from late antiquity, where it was “linked with sin,” to the early modern period, when leper colonies served as part of “the history of colonization and oppression” in Africa, Latin America, and Polynesia, to the 20th century, when leprosy become enmeshed with far-right desires to expel Jews, LGBTQ+ people, and immigrants. This singular study sheds fascinating light on an ideological cornerstone of modern society."

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Oliver Basciano @olibasciano.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Portrait of the author happy to have laid hands on the US edition of his book. Coming from @graywolfpress.bsky.social on 7 July. Hit me (or them) up for review copies, etc etc. www.graywolfpress.org/books/outcast

A very much embarrassed, photo of myself holding up the US edition of my book Outcast: A History of Leprosy, Humanity and the Modern World, published by Graywolf on 7 July. I'm wearing a blue shirt and in a wooden corridor that could be from The Shining, but isn't.

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Kirkdale Bookshop @kirkdalebooks.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Béla Tarr didn't put a baguette on the head of a drunken man participating in a seemingly endless bacchanal in a ramshackle Hungarian pub just so you could say that AI is inevitable

People are dancing in a makeshift pub.
A man in the corner has a baguette on his head.

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Oliver Basciano @olibasciano.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

I've found a new winner, trouncing even British universities in their intentionally evil invoicing bureaucracies: FRENCH LOCAL AUTHORITIES.

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Oliver Basciano @olibasciano.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

May I be the first to celebrate the reopening London Museum for showing a London sewer fatberg alongside the first Morley's Chicken sign.

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Oliver Basciano @olibasciano.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

For the Financial Times I spoke Gilberto Gil – icon of Brazilian music and former Minister of Culture – about his life, going to prison during the dictorship, his possible last concerts and Lula's October election chances. www.ft.com/content/f92b...

ft.com

Gilberto Gil: ‘Politics found us. We had to fight the dictatorship’

He’s been a global music star, a prisoner and Brazil’s minister of culture. Now he’s touring for the last time — or is he?

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ArtReview @artreview.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

The Nobel Laureate Olga Tokarczuk’s recent comments on her use of AI in ‘preliminary research’ have hit a nerve – and rightly so, says Helen Charman artreview.com/why-olga-tok...

artreview.com

Why Olga Tokarczuk Is Wrong About AI

The Nobel Laureate’s recent comments on her use of AI in ‘preliminary research’ have hit a nerve – and rightly so

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Ethan Mollick @emollick.bsky.social · 18/05/2026

In a Turing Test of sorts, it looks like a 100% AI generated story just won the Commonwealth Prize for the Caribbean region "for its lyrical precision and haunting atmosphere, the story stood out for the confidence and restraint of its voice." Published in Granta: granta.com/the-serpent-...

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Society of Indexers @indexers.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

Indexes to fiction are sometimes made, although they are unusual. Philip Bradley considered the topic in his 1989 article for @theindexer.bsky.social www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/epdf/10....

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Oliver Basciano @olibasciano.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

How much deception between lovers is acceptable before it mitigages consent between the sheets?: my review os Izabella Scott's The Bed Trick. artreview.com/the-bed-tric...

artreview.com

‘The Bed Trick’ by Izabella Scott, Reviewed

Through an existing legal case, Izabella Scott questions how much you should know about who you're having sex with

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