Boundaries of Choice: Five Fiction Reads

It’s been some time since I last wrote about books. This post reviews five - or perhaps four and a half - novels that I have recently read. My choices span continents and genres to suit a variety of tastes but they share one thing: characters facing major, life altering choices.

We begin in the UK, where crime writer A.A. Dhand introduces us to the complicated world of a new “hero” in his challenging yet gripping novel, The Chemist. From there, Lea Ypi’s book delves back into Albanian history, exploring a diverse, many-layered, but now disappeared world. This one is the “half” - all is explained in the review below. Next, Ben Markovits’ latest novel tells the story of an unplanned road trip by a disappointed, middle-aged basketball fan.

Finally, we look at two titles from contemporary Indian writers. Both are second novels following acclaimed debut titles. Building on the success of a first book is a well-known challenge that authors sometimes fall short on, but that’s definitely not the case here.

A.A. Dhand - The Chemist

 

In this, his sixth full-length novel, Dhand introduces us to a new leading character. Idris Khan, the chemist of the title, runs a pharmacy on a rundown Leeds estate. His ex-wife, Rebecca, is one of dozens of locals who visit him every day for their methadone prescription. She fails to turn up one day and his resulting search for her draws him into a violent turf war between two powerful drug gangs. 

 

As the story progresses, Idris is provoked to commit terrible acts from loyalty and necessity. He is forced into a series of decisions that challenge both his professional oath and his personal morality, engaging in violence and using his knowledge to outwit the gang leaders. 

 

Dhand’s style creates a sense of urgency, making it difficult for the reader to resist starting the next chapter and then another one. His writing is gritty, realistic and brave. He does not shy away from tackling difficult issues, including racism and prejudice between minority communities and the impact of cultural practices on the lives of his characters. He also writes with authority. He comes from a British Asian background, has a Master of Pharmacy qualification, and several years of experience in the profession. 

 

The Chemist is not a comfortable read. The scenes that play out on the bleak housing estates on the city’s periphery are particularly dark, yet authentic. The estate residents include students, methadone users, drug gangs, the vulnerable and exploited and “ordinary” people, just trying to survive against overwhelming odds. Particularly memorable are Al-Noor, a Syrian refugee trying to keep his young son away from malign influence; Amy, a young woman drawn into prostitution and Rebecca whose commitment to helping others places her in danger.

 

Brave, authentic, gripping, The Chemist is a great addition to the British crime writing canon. It is also just the beginning of Idris Khan’s story, as he features in Dhand’s new book, The Kingpin, due out in July.

 

Lea Ypi – Indignity: A Life Reimagined

 

Indignity is not, strictly speaking, a novel. Author Lea Ypi describes it as a re-imagined telling of her grandmother’s life story in Ottoman Salonica and in pre-Second World War and then communist Albania. This reimagined approach, involving detailed dialogue between characters real and imagined, led me to include Ypi’s book in a list of fiction reads.

 

She began researching this story after seeing a photograph on social media of her grandmother, Leman, honeymooning in the French Alps in 1941. This was despite having been told that all evidence of her younger days had been destroyed during the early part of Albania’s communist period. Intrigued, she began researching her family history in archives opened to the public following the fall of the old regime in the 1990s.  

Leman is portrayed as a resilient, talented, determined woman who manages to survive some of the most turbulent events of the 20^th century. Her story takes place against the backdrop of forced population exchanges between Greece and Turkey, the Italian and German occupations of Albania during the Second World War, the deportation of Salonica’s Jews, and the establishment and collapse of one of the world’s most repressive communist regimes. Historical characters also appear, including communist leader Enver Hoxha and Albania’s first and last monarch – King Zog. Real life British spy Vandeleur Robinson also features in the story. 

 

The “fictionalised” chapters are used to develop characters and demonstrate changing political moods and allegiances, and to show how historical events impact and are reacted to by Leman. They are interspersed with the author’s experiences in various archives as she searches for the truth about her grandmother. Ypi also introduces us to Leman's social milieu – that of writers, artists, politicians, revolutionaries and socialites from different backgrounds. Many were learned, multi-lingual people of various ethnicities and religions, representing a culture that no longer exists.

 

Women feature strongly in the story, some of them breaking long-held taboos and customs, but others fall prey to them. Her feminist aunt, Selma, for instance, commits suicide rather than go through with an arranged and unwanted marriage. This act highlights the meaning behind the book’s title, a refusal to surrender to the indignity of a forced existence. Indignity matches the sharp observation of Ypi’s acclaimed first book, Free, (so good I’ve read it twice) and consolidates her position as a major talent in modern biographical writing.

 

Ben Markovits - The Rest of Our Lives

 

Tom Layward, a 55-year-old law professor, drives his daughter to Pittsburgh to start university, then rather than heading home to his wife in New York, heads west. He spends several days visiting his brother, his son, an old girlfriend, eating at roadside diners and playing basketball with strangers. 

The background to this unplanned road trip is that twelve years earlier, his wife Amy, had an affair and Tom had resolved to leave her once their children had grown up. After dropping his daughter, he remembers this promise to himself and takes off. 

 

The trip forces him to confront problems at work, hidden health issues (which will later assume greater importance), an unsatisfactory relationship with his son, and to confront various other disappointments. He sums all of this up when describing his marriage, saying: “What we obviously had, even when things smoothed over, was a C-minus marriage, which makes it pretty hard to score much higher than a B overall on the rest of your life.” How is he to face his remaining years?

 

Tom is disappointed with life but is still likeable. He finds it easier to make connections with strangers rather than to communicate with close family and old friends. This may be because some of those he meets in bars, diners and on basketball courts, are also looking for something from their lives although they don’t quite know what. These and other characters are well-drawn, including his wife Amy, who makes several appearances in the book, has her own disappointments and is not written as a minor character.

 

Basketball features largely in this story. We learn that he was once a player (as was the author) and planned to write a book on the sport. Whilst on the road he decides to resuscitate this project and to this end, makes notes and collects anecdotes from strangers, but admits to himself that the book will never be written. This involves the use of a few “techie” basketball words. Look them up or don’t – I didn’t but this did not impact on my enjoyment. Tom’s challenge is to come to terms with past failures and to embrace his remaining years with hope.

 

The Rest of Our Lives was shortlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize.

 

Rahul Bhattacharya – Railsong

 

Charu is the daughter of an inter-caste marriage; her father, a railway worker, renounced his Brahmin status and family name to marry a woman of lower social standing. He becomes involved in left-wing political activism which forces the family to flee to the safety of a tribal village, making the first of many moves and journeys that will chart Charu’s life.

 

Railsong describes a double journey, one physical, the other personal. The former tracks her moving from Bihar to Bombay, as well as travelling across the country to fulfil her duties as a welfare officer for the Indian Railways. The latter deals with the sexism and opposition she encounters from more senior male colleagues. It also charts her emotional growth as she forms friendships, deals with office politics and eventually marries. Her story is one of transience and evolution, living in temporary accommodation, buffeted by events in the lives of others and by rapid change in a newly independent country. 

 

The passage of time is marked by the ten-yearly census in which Charu notes the rapidly expanding population and is conscious of her “smallness” set against such vast numbers. Historical events anchor the timeline – the assassinations of Indira and Rajiv Gandhi; the demolition of the Babri Masjid and various strikes and protest movements. 

 

The role and position of women in Indian society is a constant theme of the book. We see an aunt condemned to a life of servitude when she becomes a widow. When Charu's mother dies, the aunt is expected to move in with the family, to cook, clean and care for them. The possibility of her re-marrying or living independently is unthinkable. In contrast, Animesh, Charu’s father, is pressured to re-marry. These themes culminate in Charu’s wedding. Breaking with tradition, she chooses a love marriage. Already controversial, her entry into a Gujarati family brings new challenges – shared faith but different traditions, food and language.

 

Though she continues to work, she faces hostility from her conservative in-laws, who oppose her independence. Her husband, although supportive, is unable to stand up to his parents. He advises her that she must: “dissolve like sugar in milk,” giving up her own identity to blend-in and make the household run smoothly.

 

Railsong tells the story of one woman’s resilience, as she refuses to “dissolve” into her surroundings or surrender to the oppressive and unreasonable expectations of others.  Charu sets her personal struggle against that of a newly independent country as it tries to balance tradition with modernity. Bhattacharya has an engaging style, with well-drawn, believable characters and superb historical and social contextualisation, making this epic double-journey a moving, irresistible addition to modern Indian fiction.

 

Megha Majumdar – A Guardian and a Thief

 

Megha Majumdar’s second novel, like its predecessor, is set in her home city of Kolkata. Described as a moral thriller, the story takes place a few years in the future as law and order begins to break down, and the population struggles with flooding and extreme heat.

 

Ma, her two-year old daughter Mishti, and her elderly father (referred to as Dadu), plan to leave India to join her husband who is already settled in the USA. They have their passports and visas ready but shortly before their departure date lose everything in a burglary. Ma then sets out to recover or replace her documents, triggering a series of events that lead to a shocking denouement.

 

One of the key themes of the book is an examination of human responses to adversity. Dadu loves the city and the kindness and human connections it was once known for. He exemplifies this through giving precious cold water to a rickshaw driver. But kindness may only last so long in extreme situations, and we also see him stealing an orange from a starving child to feed his own granddaughter. 

 

The other main character is Boomba, a young man who leaves his village to find work and to support his parents and little brother. He finds a series of jobs but like Ma, he too meets disaster and turns to crime, including theft. The reader may wish to consider how society views Boomba’s stealing to help his family survive, against that of Dadu who despite the hard times, is still much better-off. For both of them, love and desperation blur the lines between right and wrong. 

 

The story is interspersed with telephone calls between Ma and her husband in the USA. Neither of them tells the full story of their condition and situation, preferring to keep the truth to themselves, hoping to resolve their mounting problems rather than to reveal them.

 

Majumdar’s first novel, A Burning, became a New York Times best seller and was also shortlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Fiction. It was my favourite book of 2020. Repeating success with a second novel is always a challenge, but I read A Guardian and a Thief in two sittings, anxious to know the outcome of Ma’s and Boomba’s struggle for survival. The book has also received critical acclaim and a Carnegie award. 

It would be interesting to know what you think of these selections, or to hear about what you’ve been reading recently. Let me know in the comments!

A single boy - a postcard from Odisha.

When I arrived in Raghurajpur, the dancers were already applying make-up in preparation for their performance. All four were dressed in silk saris and traditional jewellery, including a tiara-like item, known as a mukut. Nothing unusual perhaps, except that three of the four dancers were male and just one a teenage girl. I was warmly welcomed and told to take as many pictures as I wanted.

Gotipua is a traditional Odissi dance performed by boys. The term itself comes from the Odia words, goti, (meaning single) and pua (meaning boy). Previously, female temple dancers known as maharanis or devadasis, performed these dances. During the colonial period, the collapse of old social systems and the decline of royal patronage caused the deterioration and eventual criminalisation of the devadasi system, which had seen young girls married to temple deities and working as temple servants.

“We have toured in Europe and even performed at the Royal Festival Hall in London, but the covid period caused many problems. Despite this, we are devoted to preserving our dance and culture,” said Sri Laxman Maharaja, leader of the troupe and accomplished dancer and musician. His sons and grandchildren also perform and together with students drawn from surrounding villages, keep Gotipua alive. Many of the fifty-five students currently studying under him come from less well-off families. They train every day, first in the early morning before school, and then again in the evening. They also receive food and accommodation - an important, practical help for those from poorer families.

Two of the boys, aged ten and thirteen, began talking to me in a mixture of Hindi and English. Their own language is Odia, but both learn Hindi at school and the older boy was also studying English. They asked me about my work. I showed them one of my books, they examined it closely, commenting and asking questions: “Where is Cuba?”, “These women in Myanmar look like the tribal people in Odisha”, and, in response to a picture of a Kolkata chaiwalla - “Do you like chai?” I confirmed that I most definitely do like chai and a few moments later a cupful was produced for me.

As their preparation continued, they helped each other tie their long hair into elaborate knots, completed aspects of each other’s make-up and checked each other’s clothes. Once ready, they made their way to a raised open-air platform where the guru and his two older sons waited cross-legged, instruments ready.

They performed three dances combining vigorous, tandava (masculine) elements,  and more graceful lasya (feminine) movements and poses. They also sang while performing, the guru beating time to the music. Afterwards, I was invited to the family home where some of the students also live and where there is a small rehearsal hall on the first floor. At the rear of the house, the family maintains a gaushala, a shelter for fourteen cows. The obligatory and very welcome chai, served soon after my arrival, was made with milk from the same animals.

You might also like Beads of the Bonda or Holy Food - both in the Postcard from Odisha series

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Unfiltered - A postcard from Odisha

Almost everything is sold in the weekly market in Chatikona – fruit, vegetables, dried fish, clothes, electrical goods, haircuts, financial services, and dark, thick-veined, air-dried tobacco leaves. Locals buy the leaves either to chew, or to make into large homemade cigarettes or cheroots, which can be five to eight inches in length. These cheroots are called a sutta in the Chatikona area or a pikka in other parts of Odisha and in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh.

The pungent, earthy, aroma drew me to a tobacco vendor’s stall, where a group of women sat on the floor, preparing the leaves they had purchased. Some were already smoking and after taking a few drags, put the lit end  of the sutta into their mouths to extinguish it, before placing it behind an ear, in their hair or clothing to return to later. 

Ponala was one of the group and was about to smoke. Her nose rings identified her as a member of the Desia Kondh community, part of the wider Kondh group of the tribes of Odisha. They live mainly on the lowlands and foothills, undertake settled farming and of all the Kondh, are the group whose lifestyles are closest to that of their non-tribal neighbours. Many now follow Hinduism or Christianity, or combine one of these with their traditional animist beliefs.

Ponala agreed to be photographed smoking her sutta.  She untied her matches from the corner of her sari-like clothing, lit-up, took an initial drag  and then continued to inhale and exhale, the smoke drifting upwards partially concealing her face. As she showed no sign of wanting to move on, I continued working with the camera, capturing dozens of images and recording the whole process from start to finish. A little group of her friends came over, intrigued, and began to call out encouragement in the local language as well as: “chalo!” (let’s go!) in Hindi. 

When she had finished, I asked her age. She shrugged, raised her hands and said “no idea,” before letting out a smoker’s laugh and heading back to the tobacco stall.

 

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Beads of the Bonda - A postcard from Odisha.

 

“I don’t feel well, so I’m not drinking today,” said Adi, one of a group of Bonda tribeswomen who had agreed to participate in a short photo shoot at the weekly market in Onukudelli, Odisha.

The Bonda women are immediately recognisable. Only partially dressed, they wear a ringa – a short piece of cloth around their waists, while their torsos are covered in a string of colourful beads, as are their shaved heads. Around their necks hang heavy bead necklaces and aluminium bands called khagla and their arms are lined with bangles. When leaving their villages, some of the women wear simple dresses or wrap themselves in a piece of blue cloth for modesty.

The reason for this unique appearance is found in the Hindu epic, the Ramayana. Some Bonda women are said to have mocked the goddess Sita as she was bathing.  Enraged, she cursed them to eternal nakedness and to giving up their hair. When they pleaded for forgiveness, she softened and conceded the waist cloth and beaded jewellery. 

 

The Bonda are one of the oldest and most culturally distinctive tribal communities in India. They live mainly in hilly areas near Lamptaput and in the Malkangiri district of Odisha. They are believed to have come from Africa, possibly as long ago as 60,000 years. Bonda society is matriarchal, and women dominate and are responsible for the tribe’s economic activity. They are also, in all senses, the senior partner in marriage, taking a boy five to ten years younger as a partner. It is then the woman's role to raise him, and his to look after her when she is older. 

They practise shifting cultivation, growing paddy, millets and maize as well as gathering forest produce. The Bonda men are known for being skilled marksmen and in the past would visit markets carrying bows and arrows. The women make small items of jewellery, decorative items and some textile items which they offer for sale at Onukudelli. 

 

There are perhaps only 25,000 Bonda in total. Life expectancy is low, and the tribe has been identified as being at risk of extinction. Their unique culture and way of life is also threatened by de-forestation, economic poverty and pressure to assimilate into the Odia language. Several of the tribal communities, including the Bonda, are known to consume significant amount of desi (country) alcohol. At the Onukudelli market, numerous vendors sell mahua, a spirit made from the fermented, sun-dried flowers of the tree of the same name. This mildly sweet alcohol was banned by the British in 1892, but several states have since legalised it and there is even a bottled, premium band nowadays. 

Except for Adi, the women involved in the photoshoot drank throughout the time we spent together – some of them from glasses and some from the dried gourd seen in the photograph above. 

You might also like Holy food - a postcard from Odisha.

Holy food - A postcard from Odisha.

Bhubaneshwar’s Ananta Vasudeva Hindu Temple, built in the 13^th century, is unique in that it is the only one in the old town that is dedicated to Lord Vishnu. Like many Hindu temples, it provides a range of services, including the preparation and distribution of food known as prasad or in Odisha, abdaha. It is the same food served at the Puri Jagannath Temple.

 

Every day, hundreds of male workers are involved in the delivery, preparation, cooking and then sale of the food. They are drawn from families who have fulfilled these roles for generations and live in the vicinity of the temple. The abdaha is cooked in the temple kitchens and placed in clay pots before it is first offered to the gods and then served at nominal cost to devotees in the adjacent Bhaga Bazar. 

 

All the food is fully vegetarian and is also made without onions, garlic, potatoes and tomatoes which are not considered Indian in origin. Dishes include kanika, a sweet fragrant rice, yellow in colour and flavoured with clove, cinnamon and clarified ghee. Dalma is a slow cooked lentil and vegetable stew made with very little oil and besara is made with mustard paste, fresh grated coconut and assorted vegetables with a spice mix and a fried crunchy coconut topping. Sweet dishes are also prepared. Everything is served on banana leaves.  

 

The workers carry the clay pots, either singly on their shoulders, or with several loaded into large baskets and carried on their heads. Everything is transported at great speed as the workers move between different parts of the temple, from delivery point, to kitchen, to the offering to the deities and then to the place of consumption. This labour begins early in the morning and goes on until the food is served between 12.30 and 2pm daily. Amongst those eating are numerous priests, many of whom will have earlier carried out rituals beside the water tank opposite the temple, to mark the death anniversaries of relatives or for other purposes. Hindus come to them with offerings and to be guided through the appropriate pooja (prayers). Some pay for the priests to eat at the temple afterwards.

It is forbidden for outsiders to touch the food during preparation, or to enter the kitchens. If these stipulations are contravened, or if food is spilt, it will be considered contaminated and disposed of. Arrangements can be made for delivery to other locations and small vehicles line the road, ready to fulfil this purpose.

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Travels with my camera 2025 - the best photographs.

This year, I have visited countries in three continents. In this post I will share some of my favourite pictures from these travels with my camera.

In February and March I visited Cambodia for the second time. Phnom Penh has to be one of the best cities in the world for candid street photography while the towns and villages also have many interesting subjects. The visually striking, orange-robed Buddhist monks can be found everywhere, and people are generally open to being photographed. 

I photographed the little monk pictured below, in a monastery in Phnom Penh. As a novice, in addition to his studies, he will have many chores to complete each day. These include helping to prepare and serve food, doing laundry work and keeping the monastery clean. He will also have a little free time before lunch, his second and final meal of the day. This small boy was enjoying that time, playing imaginatively with bricks left over from a building project in the monastery grounds. 

I met Somrat Wah, the woman washing dishes, in one of the many alleys that lead off the Orussey Market in central Phnom Penh. She cooks a variety of dishes at her stall from early in the morning until mid-afternoon every day. Her upright stance, elegant attire and open smile made me want to photograph her. This picture of Somrat is a candid shot, but I was able to speak to her afterwards and to hear her story. You can read it here.

In 2023, I visited a small monastery not far from Siem Reap. It was there that I met Cai, an older monk who told me about his experiences during the Khmer Rouge period and how he survived a bullet wound to the head. I returned to the monastery this year to find that he was no longer living there. I left his picture with one of the senior monks in case he returns or comes to visit. The picture below shows a small boy looking through the window of one of the buildings in the same monastery complex. He seems far away, perhaps thinking about his future, or dreaming of being somewhere else. My friend and wonderful photographer, Kimleng Sang accompanied me to the monastery and to several villages around Siem Reap, just as he did two years ago. His work has received international recognition and can be seen here. He also offers a range of photo tours which are a great way of seeing and experiencing local life.

 

There are no direct flights between London and Cambodia and my connection was in Saigon. I had not been to Vietnam before and decided to delay my journey home and spend a few days there. I was fortunate to link up with French photographer and Saigon resident, Adrien Jean, who led me through early morning markets, city streets and lanes, far away from the main tourist sites. I was able to meet people who had lived through the Vietnam war and who were happy to share their stories. Adrien also encouraged me to try some new approaches, including shooting images reflected in the mirrors of motorcycles, glass display cabinets and the plastic awnings of shops in the flower market. This resulted in one of my favourite pictures of 2025. It shows crisp pink and white orchids in the foreground combined with the slightly blurred reflection of the shop behind and a woman wearing a traditional conical hat. 

Another of my favourite pictures of the year was taken in Saigon. It is a candid shot of a small shop where eggs, garlic, sauces, preserves, pickles and other items essential to Vietnamese cooking are sold. The woman vendor sits with her back to the camera, talking to someone on her phone. Her hair matches the colour of her blouse, the egg wrappers and other goods in the store. But, it was the image on the back of her sleeveless top that first caught my attention. It shows a woman, head turned to one side, but looking at the viewer, almost as if she is looking out for customers while the vendor has her back turned - watching you, watching me. 

I last visited Romania in 2012, when I spent several days in Bucharest, photographing the city’s art deco and modernist architecture. I returned in June this year and spent several days in Maramures, a rural area close to the border with Ukraine. My objective was to photograph a community whose traditional, agricultural way of life is coming to an end. The work is physically hard and pays little and many young people have opted to leave, choosing to work in the cities or to go abroad. I was accompanied by local photographer Vlad Dumitrescu, who acted as guide, interpreter and fixer. Through Vlad, I was able to hear the stories of elderly residents who still have clear memories of life during the communist period and even before and during the Second World War. You can read some of those stories here.  

My favourite picture from my time in Romania, is that of a married couple, Anuta and Patru. They invited us into their home where at first we sat in a room flooded with light and where Anuta spoke about their life together. They then showed us into another room, much colder and darker then the first. The only light came through a single window covered by a net curtain. Anuta sat beside the window and picked up her needlework. Patru, stood close by watching.  Their quiet companionship was touching and the scene reminded me of a Flemish painting. It is my favourite picture of the year. You can read the couple’s story here.

Pachewar is a small Rajasthani town of about 7,000 people. It is also the source of several of my favourite pictures since I began photographing people. On my first visit in 2022, I met and photographed Guni, an older woman of striking appearance. I returned to the town in September this year and was able to give her a large format print. I also revisited a Gadhia Lohar community on the outskirts of the town, to distribute some pictures and reconnect with the artisans I’d met previously. The Gadhia Lohar traditionally work as blacksmiths, but demand for their household products has reduced due to the availability of cheap, mass-produced goods. Some have reinvented themselves as artists working in metal.

Several members of one Lohar family asked to be photographed. They were teasing one of the children -  Anita - because this ten year old girl is the only relative with curly hair. Despite being a little shy at first, she wanted to be photographed too. The resulting portrait is one of my favourites of the year and is included below.

Back in the centre of Pachewar, I noticed a flash of red on the opposite side of the road. It was a scarf worn by a young woman who sat head down, reading. I could not get a clear shot because of the traffic and so I walked to the middle of the road and tried again. At this point the young woman looked up, saw me and looked directly at the camera. She was not afraid of the camera and began to smile and pose a little. I showed her the shots and we exchanged a few words. Her long chunni (scarf) contrasts beautifully with her green clothing and the dull, peeling paint of the backdrop.

Jojawer is another small town in Rajasthan. It has a bazar, several tea-shops and many friendly people, curious about outsiders. There is also a tiny art-deco neighbourhood, established by Jain families, most of whom have now departed for the larger cities. One evening, I passed a group of moustachioed men sitting talking outside a shop, all of them wearing orange turbans. Surprised to see me, they paused their conversation, asked me where I am from, and agreed to be photographed.

Jojawer is an important centre for the Ribari community - herdsmen known for their thick, rope-like red turbans and white garments. In the evenings, I walked a couple of kilometres outside of town to see the Ribari men returning home with their cattle after having been out all day, grazing them. I was invited into some of their compounds, where their wives and daughters were busy preparing the evening meal. One family were working together to administer a herbal “medicine” to their goats to prevent them catching diseases. Kallu Ram, perhaps in his 60s, owns a large piece of land and has about 40 cattle. He is pictured below, looking directly into the camera and holding his staff.

Readers who are familiar with my photography will know that I enjoy taking portraits. This year’s travels provided many opportunities to take close-ups. My best portraits come when I have been able to spend a little time with the subjects, to exchange a few words, to enjoy a snack or drink tea together. On the way to Pushkar, I made a brief stop in a Rajasthani village and met Lal Niwas in a tiny teashop. He comes from the Mali community - gardeners who cultivate vegetables and flowers which they then sell in local markets. While we sat enjoying our tea, a fight broke out between two young men who had some dispute relating to money. As they traded slaps and insults, Lal Niwas turned to me and said: “Welcome to our village.” He is pictured below.

And finally, early in the year, my daughter and I took a short road trip in the South Australian outback. It was very different from my usual travel experiences that focus on interactions with people. Here, I became fascinated by the landscape, the colours of the earth and the very big sky. It made me very aware of just how small we are and how big nature is, as illustrated by the picture below, showing our car and the South Australian sky.

In June 2026, I will return to the Jeannie Avent Gallery in East Dulwich, where several of the photographs in this post will be exhibited. I hope to see you there! In the meantime you can see my work on Instagram or on my website.

Phnom Penh - three stories from the alley

“I smoke three packs of cigarettes a day and take two energy drinks. I go to Bangkok once a year for a health check and they say I am fine,” said Lim Seng as he took another drag on one of the 60 cigarettes he smokes each day.

I have to admit he looked strong and healthy despite the unorthodox diet. I first met and photographed him two years ago, while exploring the narrow alleys near Phnom Penh’s sprawling Orussey Market which teems with customers from early morning. The narrow, shady alleys leading off the market, are home to thousands of small businesses. It is here that many shoppers, workers and local residents come to eat their breakfast and drink their morning coffee (iced to provide some relief from the heat and humidity.) The alleys are also home to many stories waiting to be told.

Lim Seng likes to sit at his small table, watching the comings and goings in the street. Earlier this year, I returned to Phnom Penh and took a large format copy of the picture to give to him. He invited me to sit, sent for coffee from the shop opposite, and began to talk about his life. “I am not from Phnom Penh,” he said, “I was born in Guangdong in China 82 years ago. When I was seven months old, the Japanese invaded and my family fled. We moved from place to place and finally settled in this neighbourhood. My parents opened a cake shop, selling our goods to local restaurants.” 

“Hard work is good for us."

He paused to take another drag on his cigarette and then gave an instruction to his grandson who disappeared into the shop. “He is 40 years old, but he looks younger doesn’t he? Hard work is good for us,” said Lim Seng. I confirmed that he did indeed look much younger. Despite the heat, he had been carrying huge, heavy looking boxes in and out of the shop and had not broken sweat. After a few minutes the grandson re-emerged carrying a photo album which Lim Seng opened and began to leaf through, using the pictures to illustrate his story. “I first went back to China in 1966 when I managed to get a visa to go and see my grandmother. I went again in 2008. This time my wife came with me. We visited Beijing, Shanghai and five provinces in all.” He proudly showed me pictures from the trip and pointed out various family members. “That’s my aunty. She died last year. She was 100 years old. These are my children - I have four, two boys and two girls. I also have eleven grandchildren and one great grandchild,” he said.  I asked him what happened to the family during the Khmer Rouge period. “We were sent to work near Battambang,” he said, “my sister did not survive."

Neighbours and passers-by began stopping, curious to know what we were talking about. Lim Seng showed them the photograph I’d brought, propping it up and displaying it on the table. His wife had died a year earlier and he spends much of his time sitting outside the shop, talking to passers-by, playing online games and watching Chinese films and TV shows on his I-pad. We had a photograph taken together and I resumed my walk. I saw him again the following day. He called me over and showed me that he’d posted on Facebook that he has a friend from England. The photograph I brought for him had been laminated and was prominently displayed on his table so that friends and neighbours could admire it.

 

“We don’t use fish sauce in our cooking.”

“We don’t use fish sauce in our cooking,” said Tay Lang Kang, joint owner, with his wife, of a small noodle shop, a few steps from Lim Seng’s table. All dishes in this restaurant are made without the pungent fish sauce, ubiquitous to the cooking of this region.“I think the smell is too strong so I persuaded my wife to use palm vinegar instead. She listened and took my advice,” Tay Lang explained. It seems to have been a good decision as there are continuous queues either for takeaway, or to sit and eat at one of the shop’s few tables. I liked the slightly sharp taste of the palm vinegar on my vegetable noodles. Beef and pork versions are also available and very popular. For customers who want extra palm vinegar, there is a bottle on each table, as well as soy sauce, hot chilli sauce and a sweeter variety of chilli. 

Tay Lang sat with my friend, Vanarith, of Urban Eats Phnom Penh, and I, and told us a little about his family and the history of the business. “I grew up in Svay Rieng province in south-east Cambodia but our ancestors arrived here from China about 100 years ago. We don’t know which part of the country they came from. My wife’s family opened this business in 1982,” he said. "During the 1990s, I worked in a Cambodian restaurant in Germany. I had a four year visa but was single and alone, so my parents encouraged me to find a wife. When I met Yeung Chan, I fell in love immediately. When we got married, she didn’t want to move to Germany and so we now run the business here.” 

The shop attracts a variety of customers, mainly locals but also some tourists and people who work in the area. Mornings are especially busy and it was interesting to see families with small children crowded onto one motorcycle, waiting for their food, alongside occasional Buddhist monks who stood outside waiting to collect alms and give blessings. There is a small Buddhist shrine inside the shop at which the owners make a daily offering. At the time of my visit, like many other business in Phnom Penh, Chinese New Year decorations were still on display despite the celebrations having passed.

Tay Lang and Yeung Chan prepare the food themselves and everything is freshly cooked at a table facing the street, making service quick and convenient. The shop is open every day and everything is freshly cooked to order. “We open from seven until five or five-thirty and are busy all day. We work very hard - we didn’t even have a honeymoon,” said Tay Lang. 

“I was a beautiful baby. Everyone wanted to adopt me."

After enjoying my vegetarian noodles, I wandered off into another narrow, but very busy alley. A line of vendors offering sweet or spicy treats lined one side. At each stall, families waited patiently for their orders to be satisfied. I bought some sweets from one vendor and while eating them, I noticed an elegantly dressed woman washing dishes on the opposite side of the alley.

Somart Wah was born in Phnom Penh and is in her late 60s. She told me her story. “I am the oldest of nine siblings. In the 1970s, my family became increasingly worried about the deteriorating situation in Cambodia and in 1972 we fled to Vietnam. We had to work very hard there and we often didn’t have enough to eat,” she said.  She paused for a moment and then added: “We had it hard in Vietnam, but I know what the Khmer Rouge did here and it was much worse than anything we went through. I returned to Cambodia in 1979, shortly after Pol Pot was defeated. Later, I had a chance to leave but I decided to stay.”

She spoke about her work. "I started my business in 1981,” she said, “at first, my nieces and nephews helped me but later on they moved away. One young family member helps out now. I cook eight to ten dishes each day for lunch and then I clear up and go home. A different trader has this spot in the late afternoon and evening.” I asked her what dishes are most popular. She replied: “Common food, like braised pork with duck eggs and bamboo shoots.” 

Somart is not married: “I had to look after my parents and siblings, my nephews and nieces, so I never got married.” She paused for a moment before saying: “But I was a beautiful baby. Everyone wanted to adopt me.” As I left she resumed washing the dishes, white bowls, decorated with floral motifs that matched her dress.   

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Tay Lang and Yuen Chan’s noodle shop is in an un-named and un-numbered alley between alleys 168 and 170 near the Orussey Market. It is sometimes referred to as the Kemara Guesthouse alley. 

Ioana remembers - Maramures stories

“I don’t hear well but my eyesight is good and everything else works,” said Ioana. Not bad for someone born in 1923 and just turned 102. We were talking outside her hilltop house in Maramures, Romania, her home since childhood. She lives alone surrounded by woods and fields full of buttercups, daisies and other wild flowers. Once a month, with the aid of a walking stick, she goes down the hill to visit her grandson. “He's tried to persuade me to move down there, but I like it here,” she said. The grandson visits her at least once a day as does her son for whom she is full of praise. “I have the best son in the world. We drink schnapps together every morning,” she said.

Ioana has clear memories of her childhood including her very short time at school. "I went only once,” she said.  "I learned the Lord’s Prayer in one day so the teacher released me. In those days no-one checked that children went to school. Our families needed us to work.” That one day at school seems to have had a lifelong impact on her. Like many of the villagers, she is deeply religious. Images of various saints are displayed on the walls of her house and she frequently touches the wooden cross that hangs around her neck. Throughout our conversation she gave me blessings for a long and peaceful life, good health and freedom from war or hunger. 

“You pity us but who will pity you?"

She also has darker memories. A century of life in this part of Europe has exposed her to major social and political upheavals as well as personal trauma. I knew that Maramures was once home to many Jews including the Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel. I asked her if she remembered them. “Yes, there were many Jews here,” she said. “They lived in nice houses beside the road. They bought lambs and sold the meat. They were taken away in carts, first to another village where they were put on trains. We watched them go. They never came back.” The deportation of the Jews of Maramures took place in 1944, when Ioana would have been 20 or 21. She stopped speaking for a moment, summoning another part of the story from her memory. “Someone told me that as they were taken away one of them said: ‘You pity us, but who will pity you?’” and then added, "One man escaped somehow and was later baptised in Sighet (the nearest major town).”

Ioana is not the only villager who remembers the Jews. Calina, aged 96 also spoke about them: “Some of them were shopkeepers. One had a shop selling exercise books, pencils, things for school. I remember there was a bell that rang when you opened the shop door. There were maybe four Jewish children in my class. I remember some of the family names - Appel and Wilder. We spoke, but we were not friends. We all kept to our own.” I asked her if she remembered the deportation and who it was that took the Jews away. “I was 14 when they took them away. There were terrible screams,” she said, “I didn’t see who took them. Maybe it was the police. It was in the Hungarian time. The police wore a feather in their hat then.” 

Maramures had become part of Hungary in 1940 and the deportation took place four years later during the spring and summer when most of the deportees were sent to Auschwitz. Very few returned. Both Calina and Stefan, a resident of a neighbouring village, recalled learning Hungarian in school and could still remember a few simple words of the language. Stefan also recalled that many Jews lived in his village. “They were clever people. Some of them made hats. Others bought rams and charged for mating them,” he said. No Jews live in the village now, the only physical evidence of their long history there being a cemetery. There was once a synagogue, but Calina said: “After they were taken away it was destroyed and the materials used to build a new school.” 

“Such cruel, terrible things happened"

Unprovoked Ioana began to talk about the period immediately after the war. “When the war was over the Russians came. Don’t ask about them. Such cruel, terrible things happened. They came into the house and took things too,” she said. In 1947, the Romanian monarchy was abolished and the People’s Republic declared, consolidating communist power in the country. Ioana spoke about how this affected her village. “The Communists took a census of all the animals. They claimed all the wool - except that from the legs and tails of the sheep - the poorest quality wool. We were allowed to keep that. They were not meant to include rams in the census, but one of the local communists was very spiteful and included them too. There was also a famine after the war. We were always hungry. We would sometimes take bark from the beech tree, boil it and use it as food. They were very bad times,” she said.

We sat in silence for a few minutes and I worried that perhaps talking about the past had upset her or made her tired. I  prepared to leave but she asked me to stay a little longer and began talking about how her family established their home in the village. “When we moved here we started from scratch. We had to bring soil from elsewhere as what was here was not good. We had to make a garden - if you didn’t have one people would judge you,” she said. “We planted many trees. There was no road, only a track. We had poor relations with the neighbours and they wouldn’t allow us to make a road so we had to carry everything on our backs.” 

“Now is the best time to be alive, it’s all good now"

I asked her if she had ever left the village. She laughed and said: “I’ve only been to Cluj (a city about two hours drive away), and like school, I only went for one day.” I pondered over the fact that despite having only spent one day outside her village and one day at school, this woman had lived through, been impacted by, and had memories of, the major events of the twentieth century. As I left, she said: “Now is the best time to be alive, it’s all good now,” before giving me one more blessing, “Good wishes always, peace, health, no pain."  

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