Other Routes: 1500 Years of African and Asian Travel Writing

"... brings new insights into the colonial relationship while challenging the unspoken temptation that this was a distinctly European period." --Simon Gikandi

Other Routes collects important primary work by travel writers from Asia and Africa in English translation. An introduction by Tabish Khair discusses travel literature as a genre, the perception of travel and writing about travel as a European privilege, and the emergence of new writings that show that travel has been a human occupation that crosses time and culture. This original and significant book will interest armchair travelers and others in views of people and places away from the European traveler's gaze.

Selections include "The Travels of a Japanese Monk" (c. 838), "Al-Abdari, the Disgruntled Traveller" (c. 1290), "A Korean Official's Account of China" (1488), "The Poetry of Basho's Road" (1689), "Malabari: A Love-Hate Affair with the British" (1890).

"Hoping to mitigate the almost total erasure of non--European travel accounts that results in a Eurocentric view of the globe, Khair (Univ. of Aarhus, Denmark) and his fellow editors showcase travel writing by international travelers of Asian and African origin. The editors offer 33 carefully excerpted travel accounts that range chronologically from the 5th century CE (Three Chinese Scholars Go 'West' to India) to the late 19th century (Malabari: A Love--Hate Affair with the British). They organize these writings under broad categories: pilgrimages, studies, autobiographies, diaries, and memoirs, and travel accounts. Although many of these extracts will be well known to scholars of travel literature--e.g., the writings of Olaudah Equiano, Sake Dean Mahomed, Abu Abdullah Muhammad Ibn Battuta, and Matsuo Basho--numerous others are relatively unknown in the West and appear in some cases for the first time in English. The volume includes a literary foreword by Amitav Ghosh and a lucid and scholarly introduction by Khair. Each of these highly readable travel accounts is preceded by an informative editorial overview that looks at the traveler, the land through which the traveler journeys, and the purpose of travel (commerce, enlightenment, conversion, etc.). Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower--division undergraduates through faculty. --Choice, Nov. 2006" --M. W. Cox, University of Pittsburgh

"The editors offer 33 carefully excerpted travel accounts that range chronologically from the 5th century CE... to the late 19th century.... The volume includes a literary foreword by Amitav Ghosh and a lucid and scholarly introduction by Khair. Each of these highly readable travel accounts is preceded by an informative editorial overview that looks at the traveler, the land through which the traveler journeys, and the purpose of travel (commerce, enlightenment, conversion, etc.).... Highly recommended." --Choice Indiana University Press Indiana University Press Indiana University Press

Tabish Khair teaches at the University of Aarhus, Denmark.

Justin D. Edwards is an associate professor at Copenhagen University, Denmark.

Martin Leer is an associate professor at Copenhagen University, Denmark.

Hanna Ziadeh is a Lebanese writer and translator who lives in Denmark.

General Introduction by Tabish Khair

Note on the Process of Editing

1. The 5,000 year old Poetry of Travel: The Epic of Gilgamesh, Kalidasa's Meghadutam and Tang Poetry.

2. Three Chinese Scholars go 'West' to India (5th - 7th century)

3. The Travels of a Japanese Mond (c. 838)

4. A Merchant of Baghdad Reports on a Viking Funeral, A.D. 922

5. The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon (c. 990)

6. Alberuni's Defence of Hindu India (1030 AD)

7. The Horizons of al-Idrisi in the 11th Century

8. The Haj and Other Journeys of Ibn Jubayr (b. 1145)

9. Two Chinese Accounts of the Early Mongols (1221 and 1237)

10. The Pilgrimages of Lady Nijo (b. 1271)

11. The Memoirs of a Syrian Prince-Polymath (b. 1273)

12. Al-Abdari, the Disgruntled Traveller (c. 1290)

13. Zhou Daguan: Notes on Angkor Wat and Cambodia (1297)

14. Ibn Battutah, World Traveller (b. 1304)

15. Navigating with ibn Majid (floreat 1460)

16. A Korean Official's Account of China (1488)

17. The Travel Memoirs of Babur (b. 1482)

18. Piri Reis: The Voyages of a 'Corsair' (c. 1526)

19. The Ambivalences of Leo Africanus (1526)

20. The European Diaries of Uruch Beg (b. 1560)

21. The Travel Diaries of Xu Xiake (1623)

22. An Arab Cleric in South America (1668-83)

23. The Poetry of Basho's Road (1689)

24. Mirza I'tesamuddin's Wonders of Vilayet (1765)

25. Equiano's Voyage to Slavery and Freedom (1789)

26. Dean Mahomed Writes from the Centre (c. 1793)

27. African Muslim Slave Narratives of teh 19th Century

28. An Indian Aristocrat in Africa and Europe (1803)

29. The Diary of Queen Emma of Hawaii (b. 1836)

30. Al Amraoui: Moroccan Ambassador to Europe (1860)

31. Blyden: A Pan-Africanist's Voyage to Palestine (1873)

32. The Shah of Iran in European Corridors (1873)

33. An African-Arab Princess in Europe (1881)

34. Malabari: A Love-Hate Affair with the British (1890)

Bibliography