Outcast: A History of Leprosy, Humanity, and the Modern World

The story of how one misunderstood disease became the global blueprint for stigma and ostracization

Outcast: A History of Leprosy, Humanity and the Modern World reveals leprosy as the world’s foundational stigma, underlying the colonialism, exclusion, and exploitation that has shaped contemporary life.

After hearing leprosy being used as an anti-immigration dog whistle, Oliver Basciano began a journey into the past, uncovering how this ancient disease has been weaponized, used to justify forced exile and social ostracism around the world. Traveling from the last leprosarium in Europe to remote villages in Mozambique, from Siberian settlements to Brazil’s hinterlands, Basciano builds a history that centers the voices of patients and those forced into the colony system. Along the way, he finds communities formed in exile, patient activism, and the persistent human capacity for joy.

In this pulsating, compassionate book, the trope of medieval suffering is transformed into a bitingly relevant study of hope and solidarity.

Oliver Basciano is a journalist and critic. Outcast won the RSL Giles St Aubyn Award for Non-Fiction. He is editor-at-large at ArtReview, and his work has appeared in The Guardian, TheTimes Literary Supplement, and e-flux Criticism.