by RobertByron (Author)
In 1933, the delightfully eccentric Robert Byron set out on a journey through the Middle East via Beirut, Jerusalem, Baghdad and Teheran to Oxiana - the country of the Oxus, the ancient name for the river Amu Darya which forms part of the border between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. His arrival at his destination, the legendary tower of Qabus, although a wonder in itself, is not nearly so amazing as the thoroughly captivating, at times zany, record of his adventures. In addition to its entertainment value, The Road to Oxiana also serves as a rare account of the architectural treasures of a region now inaccessible to most Western travellers. Here, 'armchair travellers will find newspaper clippings, public signs and notices, official forms, letters, diary entries , essays on current politics, lyric passages, historical and archaeological dissertations, brief travel narratives (usually of comic-awful delays and disasters), and - the triumph of the book - at least twenty superb comic dialogues, some of them virtually playlets, complete with stage directions and musical scoring.' Paul Fussell, from the Introduction to the OUP US paperback, 1982
Format: Paperback
Pages: 416
Edition: New edition
Publisher: Pimlico
Published: 03 Jun 2004
ISBN 10: 1844134229
ISBN 13: 9781844134229
Book Overview: 'A brilliantly-wrought expression of a thoroughly modern sensibility, a portrait of an accidental man adrift between frontiers.' Jonathan Raban, New York Review of Books'What Ulysses is to the novel between the wars and what The Waste Land is to poetry, The Road to Oxiana is to the travel book.' Paul Fussell, Abroad