Just finished @thariel's extraordinary _Out of Time: The Queer Politics of Postcoloniality_. There are some books that both make you feel smarter simply through proximity with the author's thoughts; AND give you immense pleasure in reading it. 1/

I couldn't decide which chapter I liked the best: the chapter on locating homophobia in or out of colonialism; the chapter on memories of colonialism and anticolonialism; the chapter on colonial apologies and (non)reparations; 2/

the chapter on homocapitalism; or the chapter on transness in India as a capacious way of housing the nation's fragments. 3/

This is an immensely generous and erudite book; it treats the books it reads with utmost care; it reads the literary works it quotes (and there are LOADS here) with immense intelligence and affection; 4/

I seriously love the chapter on reparations and Rahul's analysis of how the British state has found it so easy to apologise for its past homophobic violences at home and in the colonies, but cannot deal with reparations for slavery; not even verbal ones:

But also its reading of the law, of commemorative rituals, of parliamentary records, of poetry, of novels, of plays, of government texts, of historical accounts all display a kind of ability to work *with* the texts rather than having them work for him. 6/

This is such a beautiful book and I wish we could all have the ability and talent to write with such theoretical deftness, with such intellectual generosity and curiosity, and with so much DAMNED STYLE. Thank you Rahul. fin/