Bøker av Freya Stark

Hailed as a classic upon its first publication in 1934, The Valleys of the Assassins firmly established Freya Stark as one of her generation's most intrepid explorers. The book chronicles her travels into Luristan, the mountainous terrain nestled between Iraq and present-day Iran, often with only a single guide and on a shoestring budget. Stark writes engagingly of the nomadic peoples who inhabit the region's valleys and brings to life the stories of the ancient kingdoms of the Middle East, including that of the Lords of Alamut, a band of hashish-eating terrorists whose stronghold in the Elburz Mountains Stark was the first to document for the Royal Geographical Society. Her account is at once a highly readable travel narrative and a richly drawn, sympathetic portrait of a people told from their own compelling point of view. This edition includes a new Introduction by Jane Fletcher Geniesse, Stark's biographer.

Freya Stark is most famous for her travels in Arabia at a time when very few men, let alone women, had fully explored its vast hinterlands. In 1934, she made her first journey to the Hadhramaut in what is now Yemen - the first woman to do so alone. Even though that journey ended in disappointment, sickness and a forced rescue, Stark, undeterred, returned to Yemen two years later. Starting in Mukalla and skirting the fringes of the legendary and unexplored Empty Quarter, she spent the winter searching for Shabwa - ancient capital of the Hadhramaut and a holy grail for generations of explorers. From within Stark's beautifully-crafted and deeply knowledgeable narrative emerges a rare and exquisitely-rendered portrait of the customs and cultures of the tribes of the Arabian Peninsula. A Winter in Arabia is one of the most important pieces of literature on the region and a book that placed Freya Stark in the pantheon of great writers and explorers of the Arab World. To listen to her voice is to hear the rich echoes of a land whose 'nakedness is clothed in shreds of departed splendour'.

Written just after the Second World War, Perseus in the Wind (named after the constellation) is perhaps the most personal, and haunting, of all Freya Stark's writings. She muses on the seasons, the effect light has on a landscape at a particular time of day, the smell of the earth after rain, Muslim saints, Indian temples, war and old age. Each chapter is devoted to a particular theme: happiness (simple pleasures, like her father's passion for the view from his cabin in Canada); education (to be able to command happiness, recognize beauty, value death, increase enjoyment); beauty (incongruous, flighty and elusive - a description of the stars, the burst of flowers in a park); death (a childhood awareness of the finality of time, the meaningfulness of the end); memory (the jewelled quality of literature, pleasure, love, an echo or a scent when aged by the passage of time). For those who have loved her travel writing, Perseus in the Wind illuminates the motivations behind her journeys and the woman behind the traveller.

In the early 1950s, following the trail of ancient Persian and Greek traders, Freya Stark set out by boat to explore the Lycian coast. For all those who now follow in her wake, there can be no better, more evocative or knowledgeable guide to this, Turkey's most enchanting coast.

When Roman legions marched into Asia Minor in 200BC, their plan was to secure a buffer zone between the Mediterranean, which they virtually owned, and the area beyond, which they sought to isolate rather than control. Along the long frontier of the Euphrates in Turkey lay the easternmost limits of the Roman Empire--a region they called Augusta Euphrantentis. Their expanding involvement lasted eight centuries, draining their energies and culminating in the destruction of the bridge that, since the time of Alexander the Great, had linked China to the commerce of the Mediterranean. Tracing the path of this ancient river and highlighting her travels with the vibrant history of 800 years of Roman warfare and the history of this mighty river, Freya Stark ultimately reveals the futility of war, of arbitrary boundaries, and territorial conquest. Rome on the Euphrates, at once travel and history, is one of her most magnificent and highly acclaimed works.

The 12th century minaret of Djam is one of Afghanistan's most celebrated treasures, a magnificent symbol of the powerful Ghorid Empire that once stretched from Iran to India. The second tallest brick minaret in the world, Djam lies in the heart of central Afghanistan's wild Ghor Province. This title portrays Afghanistan and its history.