Synopses & Reviews
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.
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
This New York Times bestselling account of a 36-day walk across Afghanistan, starting just weeks after the fall of the Taliban, is "stupendous...an instant travel classic"(Entertainment Weekly). 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, confounding, surprising, and funny--Stewart makes tangible the forces of tradition, ideology, and allegiance that shape life in the map's countless places in between.
"A striding, glorious book...A flat-out masterpiece."--Tom Bissell, The New York Times Book Review
Synopsis
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.
About the Author
RORY STEWART is the bestselling author of The Places in Between andandnbsp;The Prince of the Marshes. A former director of the Carr Centre for Human Rights Policy andandnbsp;Ryan Professor of Human Rights atandnbsp;Harvardand#39;s Kennedy School of Government, he was awarded the Order of the British Empire for services in Iraq.andnbsp;Heandnbsp;is the Conservative Member of Parliament for Penrith and The Border, a constituency in Northern Cumbria, where he lives with his wife.
Table of Contents
Contents
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 Mans 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 Cats-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
Khalilis 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