A Winter in Arabia

by Stark, Freya

• ISBN13: 9781585672905
• ISBN10: 1585672904
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-06-01
• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams

Summary

One of the most unconventional and courageous explorers of her time, Freya Stark chronicled her extraordinary Travels in the Near East, establishing herself as a twentieth century heroine. A Winter in Arabiarecounts her 1937-8 expedition in what is now Yemen, a journey which helped secure her reputation not only as a great travel writer, but also as a first-rate geographer, historian, and archaeologist. There, in the land whose "nakedness is clothed in shreds of departed splendor," she and two companions spent a winter in search of an ancient South Arabian city. Offering rare glimpses of life behind the veil-the subtleties of business and social conduct, the elaborate beauty rituals of the women, and the bitter animosities between rival tribes, Freya Stark conveys the "perpetual charm of Arabia ... that the traveler finds his own level there simply as a human being." "A treasure of rare distinction among travel books." (The New York Times Book Review) "Here, for once in a very long while, is a book upon which the miser of superlatives may pour out his hoard of praise . . . To read such a book . . . is to be proud and thankful. For here is a lovely charity and calm courage, vivid gaiety, the strong peace of truth and understanding; and quietness." (The Times Literary Supplement)

Author Biography

Freya Stark was born in Paris in 1893. She wrote twenty books, including Alexander's Path. After a series of sojourns in the Middle East that continued well into her eighties, she settled in Asolo, Italy, the town of her childhood, where she died in 1993 at the age of one hundred.

Table of Contents

Foreword
Sir Kinahan Cornwallis
From the Air	3	(3)
Mukalla Revisited	6	(6)
Transport and the Cook	12	(9)
The Towns of the Kathiri	21	(8)
THE DIARY	29	(288)
THE JOURNEY
The Journey Begins	207	(3)
Wadi 'Amd	210	(7)
Sickness in 'Amd	217	(9)
Robin	226	(7)
The High Jol	233	(9)
The Drawings of Rahbe	242	(10)
Across the Watershed	252	(9)
Arrival in 'Azzan	261	(8)
Naqb al Hajr	269	(8)
Jebel Kadur	277	(11)
The Sultan's Caravan	288	(13)
The Site of Cana	301	(10)
A Dhow to Aden	311	(6)
Appendix I. Arabic Plants	317	(4)
Index	321