Shadow of the Silk Road

byColin Thubron

(Vintage Voyages)

Format:

Paperback

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Colin Thurbon’s beautiful prose unfolds along the Silk Road, unearthing a richly layered past on his most ambitious journey.

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. A magnificent account of an ancient world in modern ferment, Thubron covers over 7000 miles in eight months enduring a near-miss with a drunk-driver, incarceration in a Chinese cell, and undergoing root canal treatment without anaesthetic, along the way.

VINTAGE VOYAGES: A world of journeys, from the tallest mountains to the depths of the mind

It is hard to think of a better travel book written this century

The Times

About Colin Thubron

COLIN THUBRON is a celebrated travel writer, winner of many prizes and awards. His classic travel books include: Among the Russians (1983), Behind the Wall (1987), In Siberia (1999), Shadow of the Silk Road (2006) and The Amur River (2021). He is also the author of eight acclaimed works of fiction, including A Cruel Madness (1984), winner of the PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Award, To the Last City, long-listed for the Booker Prize (2002), and Night of Fire (2017). Passage is his ninth novel, shaped by a journey to Egypt.
Details
  • Series: Vintage Voyages
  • Imprint: Vintage Classics
  • ISBN: 9781784875343
  • Length: 384 pages
  • Dimensions: 198mm x 26mm x 129mm
  • Weight: 308g
  • Price: £12.99