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More copies of this ISBN:This title in other formats:The Places In Betweenby Rory Stewart
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:A brilliant account of a death defying walk through Afghanistan.
Rory Stewart's moving, sparsely poetic account of his walk across Afghanistan in January 2002 has been immediately hailed as a classic. Caught between hostile nations, warring factions and competing ideologies, at the time, Afghanistan was in turmoil following the US invasion. Travelling entirely on foot and following the inaccessible, mountainous route once taken by the Mohgul Emperor, Babur the Great, Stewart was nearly defeated by the extreme, hostile conditions. Only due to the help of an unexpected companion and the generosity of the people he met on the way, did he survive to report back with unique insight on a region closed to the world by twenty-four years of war. Review:"We never really find out why Stewart decided to walk across Afghanistan only a few months after the Taliban were deposed, but what emerges from the last leg of his two-year journey across Asia is a lesson in good travel writing. By turns harrowing and meditative, Stewart's trek through Afghanistan in the footsteps of the 15th-century emperor Babur is edifying at every step, grounded by his knowledge of local history, politics and dialects. His prose is lean and unsentimental: whether pushing through chest-high snow in the mountains of Hazarajat or through villages still under de facto Taliban control, his descriptions offer a cool assessment of a landscape and a people eviscerated by war, forgotten by time and isolated by geography. The well-oiled apparatus of his writing mimics a dispassionate camera shutter in its precision. But if we are to accompany someone on such a highly personal quest, we want to know who that person is. Unfortunately, Stewart shares little emotional background; the writer's identity is discerned best by inference. Sometimes we get the sense he cares more for preserving history than for the people who live in it (and for whom historical knowledge would be luxury). But remembering Geraldo Rivera's gunslinging escapades, perhaps we could use less sap and more clarity about this troubled and fascinating country." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
Book News Annotation:Arriving six weeks after the fall of the Taliban, journalist Stewart
set out to walk across Afghanistan, accompanied by a mastiff he named
Babur after the Mughal emperor of lore. He recounts the five-week
journey in this memoir, describing his encounters with poor
villagers, tribal elders, Taliban commanders, Western aid workers,
Quranic scholars, and many others across the remote war-torn country.
Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Review:"Stewart relates his encounters with ordinary villagers, security officials, students, displaced Taliban officials, foreign-aid workers, and rural strongmen, and his descriptions of the views and attitudes of those he lived with are presented in frank, unvarnished terms." Booklist
Review:"Stewart has done a masterly job of relating stories of many of the villages and villagers that he encountered, receiving shelter and food and kindness from strangers. He successfully conveys the intricacies of Afghanistan's culture and tradition." Library Journal
Review:"Stewart...seems hewn from 19th-century DNA, yet he's also blessed with a 21st-century motherboard. He writes with a mystic's appreciation of the natural world, a novelist's sense of character and a comedian's sense of timing." New York Times
Review:"Gripping account of a courageous journey, observed with a scholar's eye and a humanitarian's heart." Kirkus Reviews
Review:"[This] evocative book feels like a long lost relic of the great age of exploration." Guardian
Review:"His encounters with Afghans are tragic, touching and terrifying." Daily Telegraph
Review:"This is traveling at its hardest and travel-writing at its best." David Gilmour
Synopsis:In 2001, Rory Stewart set off from Herat to walk to Kabul via the mountains of Ghor in central Afghanistan. This is literary travel writing, but with a greater element of adventure and danger. It is an account of what it is like to travel painfully and slowly on foot in an alien and hostile landscape.
Synopsis:In January 2002, Rory Stewart survived a walk across Afghanistan by his wits, his knowledge of Persian dialects and Muslim customs, and the kindness of strangers. In this memoir, he writes about heroes and rogues, tribal elders and teenage soldiers, Taliban commanders and foreign-aid workers as he makes tangible the forces of tradition, ideology, and allegiance.
Synopsis:In January 2002 Rory Stewart walked across Afghanistan-surviving by his wits, his knowledge of Persian dialects and Muslim customs, and the kindness of strangers. By day he passed through mountains covered in nine feet of snow, hamlets burned and emptied by the Taliban, and communities thriving amid the remains of medieval civilizations. By night he slept on villagers' floors, shared their meals, and listened to their stories of the recent and ancient past. Along the way Stewart met heroes and rogues, tribal elders and teenage soldiers, Taliban commanders and foreign-aid workers. He was also adopted by an unexpected companion-a retired fighting mastiff he named Babur in honor of Afghanistan's first Mughal emperor, in whose footsteps the pair was following. Through these encounters-by turns touching, con-founding, surprising, and funny-Stewart makes tangible the forces of tradition, ideology, and allegiance that shape life in the map's countless places in between. Table of ContentsContents
Preface xi The New Civil Service 1 Tanks into Sticks 6 Whether on the Shores of Asia 10
Part One 15 Chicago and Paris 17 Huma 19 Fare Forward 23 These Boots 30
Part Two 35 Qasim 37 Impersonal Pronoun 44 A Tajik Village 48 The Emir of the West 50 Caravanserai, Whose Portals . . 56To a Blind Man’s Eye 62 Genealogies 69 Lest He Returning Chide . . 74 Crown Jewels 85 Bread and Water 90 The Fighting Man Shall 95 A Nothing Man 99
Part Three 103 Highland Buildings 105 The Missionary Dance 112 Mirrored Cat’s-Eye Shades 117 Marrying a Muslim 120 War Dog 127 Commandant Haji (Moalem) Mohsin Khan of Kamenj 134 Cousins 141
Part Four 145 The Minaret of Jam 147 Traces in the Ground 157 Between Jam and Chaghcharan 161 Dawn Prayers 164 Little Lord 167 Frogs 172 The Windy Place 177 Part Five 183 Name Navigation 185 The Greeting of Strangers 192 Leaves on the Ceiling 197 Flames 200 Zia of Katlish 203 The Sacred Guest 208 The Cave of Zarin 212 Devotions 217 The Defiles of the Valley 220
Part Six 227 The Intermediate Stages of Death 229 Winged Footprints 231 Blair and the Koran 234 Salt Ground and Spikenard 239 Pale Circles in Walls 242 @afghangov.org 245 While the Note Lasts 250 Part Seven 255 Footprints on the Ceiling 257 I Am the Zoom 260 Karaman 262 Khalili’s Troops 266 And I Have Mine 270 The Scheme of Generation 273 The Source of the Kabul River 276 Taliban 279 Toes 285 Marble 289
Epilogue 295
Acknowledgments 299 What Our Readers Are SayingAdd a comment for a chance to win!
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