An Incendiary Book

Laila Lalami has an appreciative review of Amitav Ghosh's new essay collection, Incendiary Circumstances:

The unifying theme here is the question that looms over writers in this age, or any other age, for that matter: how to write about the world, about its turmoil and violence, without "allowing your work to become complicit with the subject." The only answer, Ghosh suggests, is for "those who deal in words [to] pay scrupulous attention to what they say." ...Once you've finished this book, you're very likely to press it into your friends' hands and beg them to read it as well.

(As far as one can tell, most of the essays in the above are already available in Ravi Dayal editions -- such as The Imam and the Indian and Countdown.)