Colin Thubron's travel writing books standing on a shelf to show spines, with The Amur River turned to display its cover, alongside a small globe.

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Reading lists

Where to start reading Colin Thubron’s travel writing

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7 travel writers you need to know

(Vintage Voyages)

Shadow of the Silk Road

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

A beautiful and profound travel book

A masterpiece of travel writing ... a classic

Thubron is a very hardy traveller, and a very fine writer...[it is] a book of exceptional erudition, adventure and elegance

A poetic volume - interesting, shocking and deeply engaging, the work of a mature writer at the top of his game

Impresses with its scholarship and literary craft

He effortlessly interweaves the present with the fast-disappearing past, and reminds even the well-travelled how much we still have to learn about our planet...Thubron takes us on a fascinating journey that shows that travel writing at its best can still approach literature and can still educate

Colin Thubron is the master of classic travel writing, and a previous winner of the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award. His first writing was about the Middle East - Damascus, Lebanon and Cyprus. In 1982 he travelled all over Russia in an ancient Morris Marina - pursued at every stage by the KGB. From these early experiences developed his travel books: Among the Russians, Behind the Wall, The Lost Heart of Asia and In Siberia (all available in Vintage). So great is his dedication to travelling in Russia and China, that he has learned Russian and Mandarin in order to be able to speak to ordinary people en route. 
 
Colin Thubron is also a prize-winning novelist - but his travel books have a much higher profile and command much greater sales than his fiction. He lives in West London.

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

Mirror To Damascus

50th Anniversary Edition

A 50th anniversary edition of Colin Thubron's celebrated first book, a portrait of Syria's capital city, with a new introduction by the author

One of the oldest, most mysterious and fascinating cities in the world has found a worthy biographer: a rare event and one not to be missed

One of the most subtly beautiful books about a city I have ever read

Colin Thubron writes in a classical style of grave beauty, with an intense feeling for place and people

From the earliest legend to the latest coup, Mirror to Damascus reflects every discoverable facet of the city... a quite exceptional travel writer

One of the great merits of Mr Thubron's admirable book is that he balances this tribute to a place of which he is clearly very fond with the harsh facts of history... he was always moved by the best motives - curiosity and affection

Mr Thubron is a man of singular enterprise, and a writer of remarkable distinction. Surely Damascus was never sacked to better purpose

A passionate, enchanted and highly intellectual experience, both for author and reader

Colin Thubron is an acknowledged master of travel writing, and the winner of many prizes and awards. He first visited Syria in 1965 and his portrait of its capital city, Mirror to Damascus, was published to critical acclaim in 1967. He has also written about Lebanon, Cyprus and Russia. 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), Shadow of the Silk Road and To a Mountain in Tibet. Colin Thubron was President of the Royal Society of Literature from 2010 to 2017.

A 50th anniversary edition of Colin Thubron's celebrated first book, a portrait of Syria's capital city, with a new introduction by the author. 
 
Described by the author as simply 'a work of love', Mirror to Damascus provides a rich and fascinating history of Damascus from the Amorites of the Bible to the revolution of 1966, and is also a charming and witty personal record of an extraordinary city. 
 
 In explaining how modern Damascus is rooted in immemorial layers of culture and tradition, Colin Thubron explores the historical, artistic, social and religious inheritance of its people. Along the way, he shares unforgettable stories about the enterprising travellers of bygone days. 
 
 Mirror to Damascus is a unique portrait of a city now obscured by recent upheavals, by one of the most indefatigable and popular of travel writers.

Night of Fire

The breathtaking, emotionally wrenching new novel from the award-winning novelist and travel writer, Colin Thubron

Thubron returns with what might be his masterpiece… Thubron’s prose shines a penetrating light on the nature of memory and being human. Sublime.

An engrossing, unsettling and brutally beautiful masterpiece.

Each life story…is told with all this writer’s irresistible narrative gift

Medicine owes an equal debt of gratitude to him for evoking a journey through the brain with the same adventurous and beguiled spirit as he might a rainforest or ancient city… With the ease of a master craftsman he makes up new words…lovingly evokes the extraordinary places he has passed through… This outstanding novel confirms that there is nowhere Thubron fears to tread.

His calm, contemplative tone and his mastery of imagery…are on full display here.

The novel impresses with its literary craft and ambition.

A deeply personal, characteristically ambitious book.

A compelling, lyrical tale of how a single spark unravels seven entwined lives.

Thubron has written a novel which is at once disturbing and consoling. It makes you both think and feel at the same time, which is perhaps what the best fiction does more surely than any other art form.

Thubron’s prose is, of course, finely crafted. He veers in style between lyrical heights… Night of Fire could best be described as a poetic and erudite meditation on the journey of life.

[It is] beautifully written, as vivid as Thubron’s striking travel writing… Night of Fire fuses realism with the structure of a modern fable.

By [one] of the most brilliant writers of our day... Night of Fire evokes the emotions of seven tenants, plus their landlord, when their apartment house is burnt down

Thubron’s ability to span that geographical, cultural and philosophical range is just one remarkable element of this profound and exquisite novel

Ambitious but accomplished, Night Of Fire is a meditation on memory, mortality and what makes us who we are. Thubron’s readiness to deal with profound questions is impressive and the novel leaves a lasting trace.

Set in a house that’s burning to the ground… It a series of poignant, interlocked vignettes, Thubron deftly sketches the lives of the doomed inhabitants, evoking powerful images of place, of loss and shared humanity.

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.

It began with a spark... 
 
A house is burning. Its six tenants include a failed priest, a naturalist, a neurosurgeon and a photographer. Their landlord's relationship to them is both intimate and shadowy. At times he shares their obsessions and memories. He will also share their fate. 
 
The passions of these individuals reach beyond the dying house that holds them. One recalls a lonely childhood, another the cremation grounds of India, another an African refugee camp. But will their stories be consumed forever by the flames?

Falling

'This is fiction of the highest quality - a story that aims high, risks everything and haunts' Mail on Sunday--

He writes with impressive directness and simplicity at moments of passion-One is aware of the compassionate intelligence that is discreetly but continuously at work in this book

Impeccably crafted and beautifully written-many books which are highly enjoyable in the reading leave no imprint on the imagination. This one does

Mark Swabey, a provincial journalist, is serving a prison sentence in connection with the death of Clara the Swallow, a circus acrobat with whom he fell in love. And the grief-stricken Swabey looks back on their brief affair, the exact nature of his responsibility for Clara's death is movingly revealed-every sentence is informed by the most intense anguish'

Thubron weaves a skilful, poignant story of love and loss, and also reinvents the myth of the Fall-This novel is above all celebratory. It trumpets the right to walk out on the high wire, to love dangerously and hopelessly - even if death (real or metaphorical) is the price

Colin Thubron was born in London in 1939.  He left publishing to travel - mainly in Asia and North Africa, where he made documentary films which were shown on BBC and world television. Afterwards, he returned to the Middle East, and wrote five books on the Area. In 1984, the Book Marketing Council nominated him one of the twenty best contemporary writers on travel.

From the crowd below a journalist watches, as a circus girl performs her strangely daring trapeze act, and is captivated by her beauty, outrageous costumes and exotic make-up in such a way that he finds himself falling helplessly in love with her. But it is from a prison cell that the journalist remembers what happened - a prison like a microcosm of the world outside, where there are those who risk, and those who are self-incarcerated. Exploring the courage to aim beyond human limitation, Falling is an intensely moving story of love and loss.

Journey Into Cyprus

'He is the most admirable of guides, deeply versed in the rich history and archaeology of the island, delighting in the legends' - Sunday Telegraph

Thubron writes very well indeed... He carries with him the talisman of erudition combined with intuition

Thubron knows the real Cypriots... He evinces a never unsympathetic observation and a respect for the incongruous that put him in the category of Kinglake and Edward Lear

Purchased by blistered and bleeding feet, this picture is extraordinarily detailed and vivid... An accomplished linguist and historian, his passionate concern for antiquity in all its aspects - mythological, architectural, conceptual - lends weight and warmth to every chapter

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 (all available in Vintage). In 2010 Colin Thubron became President the Royal Society of Literature.

Cyprus, spring 1972. Tensions are rising between the Greek South and the Turkish North. Within two years, the country will become divided. 
 
It is at this distinctive time in history British travel writer Colin Thubron embarks on a 600 mile trek across the country. Moving from Greek villages to Turkish towns, the author of Shadow of the Silk Road and Night of Fire provides a profound look into the people of Cyprus – from Orthodox monks to wedding parties to peasant families – against the landscape of a beautiful Mediterranean island on the eve of chaos and tragedy. A remarkable quest rich in literature, classics and architecture, Journey Into Cyprus ingeniously intertwines the history and politics of Cyprus and its mythical past with the tumultuous present – from the master of travel books and writing, Colin Thubron. 
 
‘An accomplished linguist and historian, his passionate concern for antiquity in all its aspects - mythological, architectural, conceptual - lends weight and warmth to every chapter’ Financial Times

To a Mountain in Tibet

Given that Thubron has shown himself over a lifetime's work to be our finest, is seems fitting that what is as much memoir as travel book should have as its setting the greatest spiritual pilgrimage the East has to offer

A master class in travel writing that's also infused with the author's "shadowy melancholy" of ageing and grief...Thubron showcases here all the skills that have earned him the champion's belt as Britain's best living travel writer

Exquisitely written, To a Mountain in Tibet is not just a travelogue; it amounts to a heart-felt hosanna to the travails of walking... Colin Thubron takes us back to the days of exploration when the going was rough. To a Mountain in Tibet, a matchless work of literary travel, confirms Thubron as a wise and discriminate prospector in the affairs of man

Daring and brilliant. Thubron has crafted a book which beautifully describes one man's experience of loss, familial love, and even the state of mortal indeterminacy itself - how we all keep our memories, consoled and bewildered by turns, the sun on our faces, and the birds carrying above

This is a bold and brave journey, an elegiac book by a master of prose at the height of his powers

The writing glitters. Thubron has always been a travel-writing stylist, in the lyrical mould of Patrick Leigh Fermor, but with the quartz-like eye of Freya Stark

As he makes the arduous ritual circle of Kailas, the rocks and gullies come alive with their sacred meanings and give us an understanding of faiths held with a passion unfamiliar in the West. His profound, elegant and fascinating little book is much weightier than it appears.

Thubron's books celebrate the terrible, pitiful, beautiful, human condition ... To a Mountain in Tibet offers no redemption and no conclusion. Instead, it is an elegy for everything that makes us human

The most profound and revealing thing [Thubron] has ever written

This is not only a book about Tibet; it is a book about Colin Thubron and much the richer for that

The subject matter - gloomy, perhaps, in other hands - shines in Thubron's beautiful prose

Thubron's descriptive writing is as dazzling as the scenery. His scholarship on the area's religious and political history is enthralling

It could have been written for radio in how vividly it makes you see pictures, hear sounds, notice the worn trainers on the man who joined them for part of the trek, catch the tap of the sherpa's staff.  It sounds like a conversation with the listener's imagination

With a landscape that easily provokes superlatives or just stupefied wonder, and a culture steeped in esoteric beliefs, Tibet needs a writer of Thubron's caliber to do it justice

He describes both landscapes and humans in sharp poetic detail and provides a deceptively simple account of both the inner and outer journey.

In an elegiac mood and powerful prose. Thubron considers the significance of his journey, the poetry and politics of the region, and the bleak landscapes that reflect solitude

An utterly absorbing read... An elegiac meditation on life, death, family and mortality. Beautiful

Thubron is an impressive prose stylist..he writes with great elegiac precision

It's a pleasure to follow Colin Thubron's hesitant pilgrimage ... the last of the great post-war British travel writers

Amid the desolation there is a beauty that comes not only from the things that Thubron chooses to describe but from the way in which he describes them

What Thubron provides in his inimitable way is an account of both fellow pilgrimsand himself

Colin Thurbron's ode to a mystical mountain in Tibet... Not to be missed

This latest travelogue confirms Colin Thubron as one of the greatest contemporary travel writers

I am haunted by its spare simplicity and beauty

His measures prose matches the region's stark beauty. Refreshing

This pure artist of the voyage looks back backwards and within, to his late mother and his childhood, as well as up to the Himalayan peaks and peoples that he sumptuously evokes

[An] elegiac account of high-altitude piety...he's still one of the best in the business

An absolutely terrific book. Thubron has perfect pitch. He uses the minimum of words to maximum effect. His descriptions are fresh and acute and he can convey atmosphere and emotion on the head of a pin. The journey to Mount Kailash is enthralling and he keeps the reader right beside him every inch of the way

Punchy, evocative... It is a dangerous journey up to 18,000ft, where Thubron, who is mourning his mother, is hit by altitude sickness

Abook which beautifully describes one man's experience  of loss and familial love

[Thubron] skilfully balances his poetic descriptions of the land and its subtle, shifting colours with human stuff - observations of his fellow travellers, encounters and personal anecdotes, snippets of history and rather interesting accounts of Tantric Buddhism, with its swirling pantheon of blue-faced demons, bodhisattvas, gods and goddesses... Thubron has recently buried his last living relative and his grieving gives depth and weight to his meditations on Tibetan Buddhism

This is a superb book from a writer who over his lifetime has shown himself to be our finest modern chronicler of Asia

The keenest-eyed, least self-absorbed, of literary travellers, Colin Thubron writes with a pin-point elegance and economy that directs your gaze to a place and its people, rather than to the author's foibles... His tales of seekers, refugees and mystics richly sketch the background of Tibetan history and Buddhist belief. Above all, his lean and supple prose draws meaning and moment from every encounter. "To the pilgrims, there are no mute stones" - and not to their ultra-observant companion

His book is interspersed with poignant passages about his late parents and sister, who died in an avalanche when he was 23. Thubron also reveals some cultural surprises.

Making a lyrical hymn out of travel writing, Thubron's evocative pilgrimage is typically poised yet, triggered by the death of his mother, also unusually personal

Thubron's writing is as spectacular as his surroundings so he therefore makes you feel as though you are treading the path with him

[Thubron]  doesn't just walk into the higher reaches of the Himalyas but explores his own reaches of eternity as well as the more outer regions of Buddhism and Hinduism

Deploying a poetic blend of travel and memoir, Thubron uses Buddhism to inform reflections on the cycles of life and the meaning of suffering... it is an elegy for everything that makes us human

Reflections of the wheel of life are sensitively handled and the writing is as beautiful as ever

A new Travel Thubron is always to be savoured, but there was something valedictory and elegiac about this

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 (all available in Vintage). In 2010 Colin Thubron became President the Royal Society of Literature.

**TOP TEN BESTSELLER** 
 
'I would rather read Colin Thubron than any other travel writer alive' John Simpson 
 
 Mount Kailas is the most sacred of the world's mountains - holy to one fifth of humanity. Isolated beyond the central Himalayas, its summit has never been scaled, but for centuries the mountain has been ritually circled by Hindu and Buddhist pilgrims. 
 
 Colin Thubron joins these pilgrims, after an arduous trek from Nepal, through the high passes of Tibet, to the magical lakes beneath the slopes of Kailas itself. He talks to secluded villagers and to monks in their decaying monasteries; he tells the stories of exiles and of eccentric explorers from the West. 
 
 Yet he is also walking on a pilgrimage of his own. Having recently witnessed the death of the last of his family, his trek around the great mountain awakes an inner landscape of love and grief, restoring precious fragments of his own past.

Colin Thubron

A miraculous late-style masterpiece, the equal of any of [Thubron's] earlier works, which will cement his reputation as one of our greatest prose writers in any genre... The Amur River is not just a literary triumph in itself, it is also a demonstration of the continued power of great travel writing

A fascinating read packed with curiosities and incident

Thubron's journey makes for a gripping read...with fascinating political insight

Excellent... Thubron's observations are perceptive and lightly delivered

[Thubron] summons both landscape and people with nuanced sensitivity... Here is a writer at the top of his game, one from whom those toiling on the lower slopes have much to learn

Given Thubron's age, this may be his last major travel book: but he has chosen an important subject, a place where huge geopolitical forces meet and, like tectonic plates, push at each other. When the result could be an earthquake, it's worth paying attention

More even than before, Thubron's prose rings with the knowledge of truths too deep for words

The Amur River is never monotonous... Thubron never goes for vague atmospherics. He writes brilliantly about the region's wildlife and folklore, and there are moments of humour to leaven the atmosphere... Historical episodes enrich the travelogue at perfectly calibrated intervals... One can only marvel that he completed his journey and be thankful that this marvellous book came out of it

It's a powerful, relevant tale worthy of his best work

[An] extraordinary new book... a mix of road, rail and boat takes him the 3,000 miles to the Pacific, with wonderful stories at every turn

With so much uncertainty around travel, it is a relief and a joy to dive into a genuine old-school adventure, especially with a guide like Colin Thubron

A miraculous late-style masterpiece, the equal of any of his earlier works, which will cement his reputation as one of our greatest prose writers in any genre

Thubron is regularly hailed as our greatest living travel writer, and in a field where the quality of writing is already high, his prose is the most poetic of all. From the very first sentence you know that you are in the hands of a great master. He conveys the solitude and bleak beauty of the east Siberian taiga along the Amur with compelling simplicity...The Amur River is an unforgettable classic of the genre

A triumph of writing, horsemanship and sheer grit

In The Amur River, Thubron shows an unyielding willingness to listen to those he meets and attempt to understand their worlds. The result is a captivating tale, told with remarkable grit and resourcefulness, down by a very big, half-forgotten river

The Amur River it's not just an excellent read, it will inspire your ambition as a travel writer

Thubron writes with sensitivity and compassion about both peoples trying to make a go of it in this cold, inhospitable land. Beautiful

A miraculous late-style masterpiece, the equal of any of his earlier works, that will cement his reputation as one of our greatest prose writers in any genre

Colin Thubron

Praise for The Amur River

A miraculous late-style masterpiece, the equal of any of [Thubron's] earlier works, which will cement his reputation as one of our greatest prose writers in any genre... The Amur River is not just a li ...

A fascinating read packed with curiosities and incident

Thubron's journey makes for a gripping read...with fascinating political insight

A miraculous late-style masterpiece, the equal of any of [Thubron's] earlier works, which will cement his reputation as one of our greatest prose writers in any genre... The Amur River is not just a li ...

A fascinating read packed with curiosities and incident

Thubron's journey makes for a gripping read...with fascinating political insight

A miraculous late-style masterpiece, the equal of any of [Thubron's] earlier works, which will cement his reputation as one of our greatest prose writers in any genre... The Amur River is not just a li ...

A fascinating read packed with curiosities and incident

Thubron's journey makes for a gripping read...with fascinating political insight

Books by Colin Thubron

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Where to start reading Colin Thubron’s travel writing

7 travel writers you need to know

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