Book description
In 1933 Robert Byron began 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.
The Road to Oxiana
offers not only a wonderful record of his adventures, but also a rare
account of the architectural treasures of a region now inaccessible to
most Western travelers.
Robert Byron was born in 1905, and educated
at Eton and Merton College, Oxford. He died in 1941, during the Second
World War, when the ship he was serving on was torpedoed by a U-Boat
off Cape Wrath. Byron's The Road to Oxiana is considered by
many modern travel writers to be the first example of great travel writing.
Award-winning travel writer and novelist Colin Thubron was born in
London on 14 June 1939. Among his books are Mirror to Damascus
(1967), The Hills of Adonis: A Quest in Lebanon (1968),
Jerusalem (1969), The Lost Heart of Asia (1994) and
In Siberia (1999). Colin Thubron is a regular contributor and
reviewer for magazines and newspapers including The Times,
The Times Literary Supplement and the Spectator. He
lives in London.
