Author: Nicolas Bouvier
Translator(s): Robyn Marsack
Publisher: Rupa
Year: 2004
Language: English
Pages: 309
ISBN/UPC (if available): 091039587X
Description
We had two years in front of us, and money for four months. The programme was vague, the main thing was just to get going.
From ten to thirteen I had stretched out on the rug, silently contemplating the atlas, and that makes one want to travel. I had dreamed of regions such as the Banat, the Caspian, Kashmir, of their music, of the glances one might meet there, of the ideas that lay in waiting. When desire resists common sense’s first objections, we look for reasons-and find that they’re no use We really don’t know what to call this inner compulsion. Something grows, and loses its moorings, so that the day comes when, none too sure of ourselves, we nevertheless leave for good.
Travelling outgrows its motives. It soon proves sufficient in itself. You think you are making a trip, but soon it is making you-or unmaking you.
REVIEW
Travel writing to be cherished and reread.
-Kirkus Reviews
Contents
Acknowledgements
Forewords by Patrick Leigh Fermor
Preface
A Scent of Melons
The Road to Anatolia
The Lion and the Sun
Tabriz-Azerbaijan
Turbans and Willows
Tabriz II
Shahrah
Around the Saki Bar
Afghanistan
The Road to Kabul
Kabul
The Hindu Kush
The Khyber Road