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Shadow of the Silk Road

  • Imprint: Vintage Classics

  • ISBN: 9781784875343

  • Length: 384  Pages

  • Dimensions: 198mm x 24mm x 129mm

  • Weight: 305g

  • RRP: £8.99

Shadow of the Silk Road

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

  • Imprint: Vintage Classics

  • ISBN: 9781784875343

  • Length: 384  Pages

  • Dimensions: 198mm x 24mm x 129mm

  • Weight: 305g

  • RRP: £8.99

Reviews

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

    The Times

  • A beautiful and profound travel book

    Mail on Sunday

  • A masterpiece of travel writing ... a classic

    New Statesman

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

    Robert Macfarlane, Spectator

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

    Sara Wheeler, Daily Telegraph

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About the Author

Colin Thubron

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.

Colin Thubron

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Recommendations

Where to start reading Colin Thubron’s travel writing

Colin Thubron is one of the most prolific travel writers of our time, with a career spanning more than fifty years. To celebrate the publication of his latest book, The Amur River, here is a guide on where to get started with his travel writing.

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