The Marsh Arabs - Hardcover

Thesiger, Wilfred

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 000217068X ISBN 13: 9780002170680

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2000

Synopsis

Wilfred Thesiger’s classic account of the eight years he spent living with the tribespeople of the Marshes of Iraq.

First published in 1964 to great acclaim, this book by one of the century’s greatest explorers describes a way of life which lasted for thousands of years, but has now all but vanished.

Travelling with his medicine boxes and his teams of canoemen around the junction between the Tigris and the Euphrates, Thesiger visited nearly every village in the Central Marshes and came to know intimately the people who inhabit this landscape of islands, lakes and waterways, living with them in their reed houses and sharing their unique way of life. He beautifully evokes the landscape and its teeming wildlife and vividly brings to life the many friends he made among the Marsh Arabs. His extraordinary photographs provide a stunning record of the last remnants of a people and their culture.

About this title

About the Author

Wilfred Thesiger was born in 1910 in Ethiopia. From 1930 he travelled through remote areas of Africa, the Middle East and Asia. His journeys and his books have won him numerous prestigious awards over the years. In 1968 he was made a CBE; he was honoured with a KBE in 1995.

From the Back Cover

Wilfred Thesiger lived among the Marsh Arabs for eight years, sharing a threatened way of life which had lasted for millennia.

There was hardly a village in the Central Marshes – an area covering some 6000 square miles around the junction of the Tigris an the Euphrates – which Thesiger did not visit, however small. This is a landscape of islands, some fo them floating, many of them man-made; of lakes and waterways; where the reed houses are of a unique an impressive architecture; where the economy of the inhabitants is based largely on their herds of water buffalo. They fish, shoot wildfowl and hunt the enormous and dangerous wild pigs that ravage their crops. Travelling from village to village with his medicine boxes and his team of canoemen, Wilfred Thesiger came to know these people and their way of life intimately.

There are times of excitement and hardship, accidents, blood feuds, there are episodes of tragedy and happiness and moments of pure comedy. Not only does Thesiger evoke with great beauty the landscape and its teeming wildlife, but he brings to vivid life the friends he made among the Marsh arabs – the sheikhs, his canoemen and their families. Few travel books have described an area and its inhabitants with such knowledge or such evident sympathy.

"A masterpiece."
H.D. ZIMAN, 'The Daily Telegraph'

"Here is the fascination of a strange land and the power to convey it."
THE TIMES

"The greatest of living explorers."
RAYMOND MORTIMER, 'Sunday Times'

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 000217068X
• ISBN 13: 9780002170680
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 240