Book description
For four months and five hundred miles Colin Thubron walked the
mountains of Lebanon, following tracks and rivers. His journey was not
only a survey of a remarkable country, but a quest for the gods and
divinities who held the secrets of death and rebirth in the land's
ancient cults.
He visited almost every place of cultural importance, and lived with
the people along his way, recording a country of outstanding natural
scenery, rich with a unique medley of races and religions.
The Hills of Adonis is both a travel book and a personal
journal; for the quest is the search for meaning, a reflection on
faith and reason and a poem on the joy and complexity of living.
Colin Thubron is an acknowledged master of travel writing, and the
winner of many prizes and awards. His first writing was about the Middle
East - Damascus, Lebanon and Cyprus. In 1982 he travelled into the
Soviet Union in an ancient Morris Marina, pursued by the KGB, a journey
he recorded in
Among the Russians
. From these early experiences developed his classic travel books:
Behind the Wall
(winner of the Hawthornden Prize and the Thomas Cook Travel Award),
The Lost Heart of Asia
,
In Siberia
(Prix Bouvier) and
Shadow of the Silk Road
(all available in Vintage). In 2010 Colin Thubron became President the
Royal Society of Literature.
