Shadow of the Silk Road
Colin Thubron
A journey along the greatest land route on earth, from the master of travel writing Colin Thubron
On 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. Covering over 7000 miles in eight months Thubron recounts extraordinary adventures - a near-miss with a drunk-driver, incarceration in a Chinese cell during the SARS epidemic, undergoing root canal treatment without anaesthetic in Iran - in inimitable prose. Shadow of the Silk Road is about Asia today; a magnificent account of an ancient world in modern ferment.
'It is hard to think of a better travel book written this century' Times
'Thubron is the pre-eminent travel writer of his generation' Sunday Telegraph
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About Colin Thubron
Reviews for Shadow of the Silk Road
The Times
Shadow of the Silk Road is a work of boundless riches. Every paragraph carries a captivating phrase...offering up an understanding of our world today that is as immediate as tomorrow's news, yet infinitely profound
Craig Brown
Mail on Sunday
One of Thubron's great strengths is his compassion...his shimmering prose creates a wonderful book, so multilayered that, when I reached the end, I wanted to read it all over again
Sunday Times
Rich in humour, compassion and history, another confirmation, if any more were needed, that Thubron is the pre-eminent travel writer of his generation
Sunday Telegraph
A poetic volume - interesting, shocking and deeply engaging, the work of a mature writer at the top of his game
Sara Wheeler
Daily Telegraph
Thubron is a very hardy traveller, and a very fine writer...[it is] a book of exceptional erudition, adventure and elegance
Robert Macfarlane
Spectator
Thubron makes his way with an appealing blend of self-doubt and erudition; he is willing, he is patient,; he knows he cannot resolve but he can attempt to decipher.... He is the reliable storyteller we needed in place of Marco Polo. His stock in trade makes him invaluable to us
Independent on Sunday
Haunting, elegiac, melancholy, magical
Financial Times
An exquisitely written work of great profundity
Herald
Shadow of the Silk Road is an astonishing achievement - both the journey and the book. Mr Thubron's tenacity, endurance, stamina and erudition metamorphose into exquisite prose. This is harder to achieve than one might think and can only be the result of huge effort and skill
Economist