Préface
The international bestseller: A brilliant account of Rory Stewart's walk through war-ravaged Afghanistan. Now with illustrations and an afterword.

Auteur

Rory Stewart was born in Hong Kong and grew up in Malaysia. After a brief period in the British army, he joined the Foreign Office, serving in the Embassy in Indonesia and as British Representative in Montenegro, Yugoslavia. In 2002 he completed a 6,000 mile walk from Turkey to Bangladesh. His account of crossing Afghanistan on foot shortly after the US invasion, The Places In Between, was published in 2004, drew widespread acclaim, and was shortlisted for that year's Guardian First Book Award. He was awarded an OBE in 2004 for his work in Iraq. From 2006 to 2008 he lived in Kabul, where he was the Chief Executive of the Turquoise Mountain Foundation; in 2009 he was appointed to a professorial chair at Harvard University as the Ryan Family Professor of Human Rights; and in 2010 he was elected as Member of Parliament for Penrith and the Border.

Texte du rabat

'An astonishing achievement: a unique journey of great courage' Colin Thubron

Winner of the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Award and the Spirit of Scotland Award.

Shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize and the Scottish Book of the Year Prize.

Rory Stewart's moving account of his walk across Afghanistan in January 2002 was immediately hailed as a classic. Caught between hostile nations, warring factions and competing ideologies, at the time Afghanistan was in turmoil following the US invasion. Travelling entirely on foot and following the inaccessible mountainous route once taken by the Mogul Emperor Babur the Great, Stewart was nearly defeated by the extreme, hostile conditions. Only with the help of an unexpected companion and the generosity of the people he met on the way did he survive to report back with unique insight on a region closed to the world by twenty-four years of war.

'Stewart must have balls of steel, but he writes like an angel all the same' Giles Foden

'An insight into the country that few could match' New Statesman

'Stewart is so far off the beaten track that his evocative book feels like a long lost relic of the great age of exploration' Guardian

'Thank goodness for brave people doing crazy things and for a writer in the tradition of Thesiger and Thubron' Spectator

Résumé
A moving account of a death-defying walk across war-torn Afghanistan in January 2002 from Rory Stewart, author of Politics on the Edge and host of the hit podcast The Rest Is Politics.