Arabia through the Looking Glass - Softcover

Jonathan Raban

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1780601395 ISBN 13: 9781780601397

Publisher: Eland Publishing Ltd, 2018

Synopsis

Into Jonathan Raban s familiar Earls Court neighbourhood after the 1970s oil boom came new visitors from the Arab world, dressed in floor-length robes and yashmaks. A people apart, little known, Raban wanted to get behind the myth and the rumour to discover the reality of their lives and world. His journey took him through Bahrain, Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Yemen, Egypt and Jordan. What he discovered was a far cry from the camel, tent and sand dune archetypes of early European explorers. Oil wealth had seeped into almost every corner, and Bedouin encampments had been replaced by cosmopolitan boomtowns, camels by Range Rovers. The sons of Bedouin nomads were now studying medicine in Europe and engineering in New York. Yet in this fast-moving world, old certainties remained and cultural innovation lagged miles behind economic change

About this title

About the Author:

Born in 1942, Jonathan Raban taught English and American Literature at university until the age of 27, when he achieved his childhood ambition and began to earn his living as a writer. Combining literary criticism with writing fiction and for the radio, he was a much admired stylist on the London literary scene. From the late 1970s he began increasingly to travel, finding in these journeys the raw material from which to fashion his literary art, the background against which to try to understand his life and the lives of others. Married three times, he now lives in Seattle, not far from his only daughter.

About this edition

• Publisher: Eland Publishing Ltd
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1780601395
• ISBN 13: 9781780601397
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 312