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VINTAGE VOYAGES: A world of journeys, from the tallest mountains to the depths of the mindOn buses, donkey carts, trains, jeeps and camels, Colin Thubron traces the drifts of the first great trade route out of the heart of China into the mountains of Central Asia, across northern Afghanistan and the plains of Iran into Kurdish Turkey. A magnificent account of an ancient world in modern ferment, Thubron covers over 7000 miles in eight months Thubron enduring a near-miss with a drunk-driver, incarceration in a Chinese cell, and undergoing root canal treatment without anaesthetic, along the way.
About the author
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. His most recent book is
To a Mountain in Tibet (all available in Vintage). Colin Thubron was President of the Royal Society of Literature from 2010 to 2017.
