On a low ridge near the market town of Welshpool (Y Trallwng to Welsh-speakers) stands the red sandstone castle of Powis, Y Castell Goch, set among formal terraced gardens in a wide and wooded park. It is only a mile or two from the English border and began life in the Middle Ages as a Welsh fortres…
‘The sea runs through our house – not literally, of course, but metaphorically, or perhaps emotionally.’
‘Shame and regret are certainly not the same things: je ne regrette rien, like charity, can cover a multitude of sins.’
‘The insularity of Texas has always entertained travellers, coupled as it is with extreme technical sophistication, and Texans of course love to make the most of it.’
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
‘That first sight of the city curled around the river goes through me like the breath of something old and known and familiar. The city has been destroyed many times in the last thousand years, no less by development authorities than by conquerors. And yet it is so perfect an articulation of the culture that built it that the overlay of centuries has not muffled its voice.’ Aatish Taseer revisits Varanasi.
