The Road to Oxiana - Couverture souple

Byron, Robert

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0099523884 ISBN 13 : 9780099523888

Editeur : Vintage Classics, 2010

Synopsis

In 1933, the delightfully eccentric Robert Byron set out on a journey through the Middle East via Beirut, Jerusalem, Baghdad and Teheran to Oxiana. This title presents a record of his adventures and an account of the architectural treasures of a region.

A propos du livre

Revue de presse :

"A brilliantly-wrought expression of a thoroughly modern sensibility, a portrait of an accidental man adrift between frontiers" (New York Review of Books)

"The Road to Oxiana is part travelogue, part aesthetic manifesto and part social observation; it remains the most thoroughly readable of all books. And Byron is the ideal companion, witty, charming, irascible, and content to leave and be left alone" (The Times)

"The Road to Oxiana is an informed, somewhat high-flown account of the early Islamic architecture of Persia and Afghanistan wrapped in a comic narrative that ensured a far wider readership... Funny, didactic and biting, Byron's masterpiece transports us across the world and, better still, across the decades to splendidly alien lands" (Independent)

"My favourite travel book is Robert Byron's The Road To Oxiana, which started a new wave of travel writing. I took it on my first trip to Iran. I always take books about the places I'm visiting: I sat in a ruined mosque now populated by sheep and read Byron's wonderful descriptions of it. I think that sowed a seed for the Travel Bookshop" (Sarah Anderson, founder of The Travel Bookshop)

"I love literary travel books and this is the best one in the English language. Scholarly, eccentric and wildly opinionated" (Tudor Parfitt Geographical)

Quatrième de couverture :

'Robert Byron was the pre-eminent travel writer of his generation. Witty, mercurial, combative, erudite, his classic The Road to Oxiana fuses his scholarship and descriptive power' Colin Thubron, Guardian

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 formed part of the border between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union. While his arrival at his destination, the legendary tower of Qabus, is a wonder, the journey itself is a captivating, quirky record of his adventures and a rare account of the architectural treasures of a region now inaccessible to most Western travellers.

'There are funny tales...There are exquisite vignettes... Most of all, this book is a monument to monuments that are gone' The Times

See Also: The Ascent of Rum Doodle

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Vintage Classics
• Date d'édition: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0099523884
• ISBN 13: 9780099523888
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 432