Out of Steppe

Exploring his life-long fascination with the Silk Road, Daniel Metcalfe travels alone through remote regions of Central Asia in search of some of its lost peoples.

This book's idea is timely: a quest for six ethnic communities that, after surviving the depredations of Sovietism, are now, as Central Asia modernises, disappearing ... [Metcalfe's] book has many virtues, the greatest of which are courage and a keen eye for detail, plus an ability to convey the essence of a place through the briefest of anecdotes

This is a book of great warmth and immense scholarship, in the best tradition of travel writing. It opens up a region about which most of us are vague. It is fascinating reading

Daniel Metcalfe journeys through the five 'stans, as well as Pakistan and Afghanistan, and brings to life the human tapestry they comprise

This is an important book: a first-hand account from an adventurous traveller who has dared to explore the fulcrum of Asian geopolitics. Read this and you will understand why we need to care about Central Asia. Metcalfe has reminded us of why travel-writing matters

Nicholas Crane, author of Clear Waters Rising

Enterprising and finely written ... Metcalfe can justly be compared with British adventurers such as Robert Byron

Fresh, witty and full of quirky detail ... the book is also a serious, sometimes moving account of environmental degradation, political repression and social isolation

Full of telling anecdotes and snappy metaphors, Out of Steppe is a humane portrait of a region with a complex past and an uncertain future

Metcalfe writes with sensitivity and great flair ... I was totally absorbed

Daniel Metcalfe left Oxford University in 2002 with a degree in Classics. Long fascinated by Central Asia, he taught himself Persian and headed to Iran and the steppes. An energetic traveller, Metcalfe - who also speaks Russian, Swedish and Portuguese - has journeyed extensively throughout Asia, Eastern Europe and the Caucasus.

Daniel Metcalfe journeys through the five 'stans, as well as Pakistan and Afghanistan, and brings to life the brilliant human tapestry they comprise - uniquely shaped by the immigrants, deportees and conquerors that have settled there. Revealing a Central Asia that is far removed from the home of Borat or the land of international terrorism, Metcalfe unlocks the secrets of this troubled region, glorying in its diversity and also lamenting the economic and cultural changes that threaten to eradicate some of its peoples...

Daniel Metcalfe

Metcalfe explore[s] Angola by road to get under the skin of a nation in which corruption and nepotism are rife... Along the way, [he] cleverly weaves in Angola's colonial history, including Portugal's shocking slave-trading past, civil war and rapid rise of the nouveau riche... Angola's extraordinary cocktail of corruption, oil wealth, destitution and post-colonial blues adds an altogether grittier dimension.

A curious tenderloin-abroad-tale that is both diligent and gripping in its portrait of a country torn apart.

Step forward Daniel Metcalfe, whose account of his three-month exploration of [Angola] doesn't shirk from describing the appalling poverty but manages to reach [an] optimistic conclusion.

An invigorating, eye-opening and fascinating study

This gritty book gives an in-depth account of Angola... and captures the corruption of a country with a multimillionaire elite and many dirt poor.

A Journey Into Angola

‘A rich and fascinating book about an overlooked African powerhouse by a travel writer of rare talent.’ TIM BUTCHER, author of Blood River and Chasing the Devil 
 
Since the end of its crippling 27-year civil war over a decade ago, Angola has changed almost beyond recognition. An oil-fuelled bonanza has brought about massive foreign investment and a fabulously wealthy new elite, making its capital, Luanda, the second most expensive city in the world. Today, fortunes are being made and lost overnight, and rich Angolans are eagerly buying up the assets of its former coloniser, Portugal. 
 
Fascinated by this complex nation perched at the forefront of a resurgent Africa, writer Daniel Metcalfe travelled to Angola to explore the country for himself. Ebullient and proud, and often unwilling to dwell on its past, Angola has a large army, a hunger for wealth and a need to prove itself on the continent. But as Metcalfe also discovers, it has some of the most grinding poverty in Africa as few Angolans have reaped the rewards of the peace. 
 
Nonetheless, amid Angola's brash reality, Metcalfe finds there is a place for a traveller who isn't there to make a quick buck. Crossing the country as ordinary Angolans do, talking to tribal elders, oil workers, mine clearers and street children, he encounters a place of extremes, where cynicism and excess go hand-in-hand with great hospitality and ingenuity. Metcalfe also reveals a colourful history of pirates and slave traders, capuchin monks, syncretic Christian cults and elaborate spirit masks. 
 
This is an Angola that symbolises nothing less than a broader turning point between the continents, the repositioning of the rich developed world versus Africa. It is a land that, until now, few outsiders have managed to unlock.

Daniel Metcalfe

Praise for Blue Dahlia, Black Gold

Metcalfe explore[s] Angola by road to get under the skin of a nation in which corruption and nepotism are rife... Along the way, [he] cleverly weaves in Angola's colonial history, including Portugal's shocking slave ...

A curious tenderloin-abroad-tale that is both diligent and gripping in its portrait of a country torn apart.

Step forward Daniel Metcalfe, whose account of his three-month exploration of [Angola] doesn't shirk from describing the appalling poverty but manages to reach [an] optimistic conclusion.

Metcalfe explore[s] Angola by road to get under the skin of a nation in which corruption and nepotism are rife... Along the way, [he] cleverly weaves in Angola's colonial history, including Portugal's shocking slave ...

A curious tenderloin-abroad-tale that is both diligent and gripping in its portrait of a country torn apart.

Step forward Daniel Metcalfe, whose account of his three-month exploration of [Angola] doesn't shirk from describing the appalling poverty but manages to reach [an] optimistic conclusion.

Metcalfe explore[s] Angola by road to get under the skin of a nation in which corruption and nepotism are rife... Along the way, [he] cleverly weaves in Angola's colonial history, including Portugal's shocking slave ...

A curious tenderloin-abroad-tale that is both diligent and gripping in its portrait of a country torn apart.

Step forward Daniel Metcalfe, whose account of his three-month exploration of [Angola] doesn't shirk from describing the appalling poverty but manages to reach [an] optimistic conclusion.

Books by Daniel Metcalfe

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