Colin Thubron is a British travel writer and novelist whose works are celebrated for their profound literary insight. His writing frequently delves into complex human relationships and cultural nuances, characterized by keen observation and evocative prose. Thubron's style is lauded for its ability to capture the essence of the places and people he portrays, offering readers immersive and reflective experiences. His literary contributions are recognized for their unique perspective and masterful storytelling.
This volume in The Seafarers series discusses the history, development, and social characteristics of the Venetians and describes their armor, ships, and some of the battles in which they engaged.
This volume in The Seafarers series surveys the various seafarers of the ancient world, including Greece and Rome, their ships, trade, and battles at sea.
'Thubron on top form. Richly detailed, immaculately written and full of insights and encounters that bring a complex corner of the world to life' Michael Palin A dramatic and ambitious new journey for our greatest travel writer The Amur River is almost unknown. Yet it is the tenth longest river in the world, rising in the Mongolian mountains and flowing through Siberia to the Pacific. For 1,100 miles it forms the tense border between Russia and China. Haunted by the memory of land-grabs and unequal treaties, this is the most densely fortified frontier on earth. In his eightieth year, Colin Thubron takes a dramatic journey from the Amur's secret source to its giant mouth, covering almost 3,000 miles. Harassed by injury and by arrest from the local police, he makes his way along both the Russian and Chinese shores, starting out by Mongolian horse, then hitchhiking, sailing on poacher's sloops or travelling the Trans-Siberian Express. Having revived his Russian and Mandarin, he talks to everyone he meets, from Chinese traders to Russian fishermen, from monks to indigenous peoples. By the time he reaches the river's desolate end, where Russia's nineteenth-century imperial dream petered out, a whole, pivotal world has come alive. The Amur River is a shining masterpiece by the acknowledged laureate of travel writing, an urgent lesson in history and the culmination of an astonishing career.
Journalist Mark Swabey is serving a prison sentence in connection with the death of Clara the Swallow, a circus acrobat with whom he fell in love. As the grief-stricken Swabey looks back on their affair, the exact nature of his responsibility for Clara’s death is movingly revealed.
Having learned Mandarin, and travelling alone by foot, bicycle and train, Colin Thubron sets off on a 10,000 mile journey from Beijing to Tibet, starting from a tropical paradise near the Burmese border to the windswept wastes of the Gobi desert and the far end of the Great Wall. What Thubron reveals is an astonishing diversity, a land whose still unmeasured resources strain to meet an awesome demand, and an ancient people still reeling from the devastation of the Cultural Revolution.
'In Siberia is travel writing at its very best: luminous, lyrical, erudite and almost painfully sensitive, full of atmosphere and oddities and the breath of landscapes that seem too vast to comprehend. Thurbron stands among the greatest travel writers of this or any age' Stanley Stewart, Literary Review
An acclaimed travel writer and novelist, in his eightieth year, takes a dramatic journey on the little-known Far East Asian river that forms the highly contested border between Russia and China, covering almost 3,000 miles
A guide to the history, people and culture of Central Asia in the wake of the break-up of the Soviet Union. It documents the widespread social upheaval in a region reeling from political change.
A journey to the heart of and ancient city.An extract from 'The Lost Heart of Asia'.
Among the Russians is a marvellous account of a solitary journey by car from St. Petersburg and the Baltic States south to Georgia and Armenia. A gifted writer and intrepid traveller, Thubron grapples with the complexities of Russian identity and relays his extraordinary journey in characteristically lyrical style.
50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY THE AUTHORDescribed by the author as simply 'a work of love', Mirror to Damascus provides a rich and fascinating history of Damascus from the Amorites of the Bible to the revolution of 1966, and is also a charming and witty personal record of an extraordinary city.
Beautifully packaged reissue of Colin Thubron's classic which bring the whole of his backlist into Vintage, The people, their history and the beauty of an island on the brink of tragedy. This is the account of a unique journey -- a six-hundred-mile trek on foot around Cyprus in the last year of the island's peace. Colin Thubron intertwines myth, history and personal anecdote in a quest from which the characters and places, architecture and landscape all spring vividly to the reader's eye.
Offers an intimate travelogue of the author's trek to Kailas, the holiest mountain in Tibet, in the wake of the death of his mother and the loss of his family.
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
For four months and five hundred miles Colin Thubron walked the mountains of Lebanon, following tracks and rivers. His journey was not only a survey of a remarkable country, but a quest for the gods and divinities who held the secrets of death and rebirth in the land's ancient cults.
Much of the romance of the past centres around travel and the trade routes of the world. For hundreds of years people have crossed mountains and deserts, sailed down rivers and across seas in pursuit of conquest, trade or adventure. In this book seven travellers, well-known in different spheres, make seven journeys, recording their experiences and describing the places and the people they encounter. Colin Thubron follows the Silk road beyond the Great Wall of China to the borders of Afghanistan. Whilst Naomi James visits several of the islands which were settled by Polynesians many centuries ago. Crossing the border between the USA and Mexico, Hugo Williams goes from the First to the Third World along the Pan American Highway and through Central America by river. Miles Kington travels the Burma Road, once used by Marco Polo and later a life-line for the allies in World War II. The route taken by the Vikings between the Baltic and the Black Sea was the one followed by Noram Stone. Starting in Leningrad, he travels through Estonia and Lithuania to Kiev and then on to Yalta. And William Shawcross journeys along the old Salt road once used by traders to carry salt from the mines in the Sahara desert. Finally, in Vietnam, Phillip Jones Griffiths returns to the country where he spent nearly three years during the war.
Jerusalem is a city sacred to three faiths: Moslem, Jew and Christian. No other city has been fought over with such religious ferocity and anguish; no other city has inspired such love and devotion through the centuries. Colin Thubron, author of Among the Russians and Mirror to Damascus, wrote his personal tribute to Jerusalem in 1969. It is an evocation of the sights, sounds, unique atmosphere and character of the Jerusalem of recent years, set against the backdrop of cultural, religious and historical influences of the past.
La regione geografica descritta è l'Asia centrale e l'autore resta rigorosamente all'interno dei confini di quella che era la vecchia Urss, perché si tratta di una terra dimenticata, rare volte meta di viaggi turistici. Thubron segue la Via della seta: la magica Bukhara, uno sguardo al lago di Aral; il mito di Samarcanda e poi ancora più a est, nel remoto Pamir, per un'ascesa mistica alle montagne del paradiso terrestre della Bibbia.
Eine kühne und mutige Reise, ein elegisches Buch von einem Meister der Prosa auf der Höhe seines Könnens (Evening Standard) Die Sätze funkeln. Thubron war immer schon ein großer Stilist, mit der lyrischen Kraft eines Patrick Leigh Fermor und dem quarzgenauen Auge Freya Starks. (Scotsman) Auf seiner mühevollen rituellen Umkreisung des Kailash erweckt Thubron die Felsen und Schluchten zum Leben und schafft ein Verständnis für eine Religiösität voller Hingabe, wie wir sie im Westen nicht kennen... Dieses Buch ist tiefgründig, elegant und faszinierend.) (Daily Mail) Thubrons Beschreibungen sind so überwältigend wie die Szenerie... Faszinierend. (Financial Times)
Un territorio a lungo considerato oscuro e inquietante, con un passato ricco di contraddizioni: Colin Thubron, primo tra gli scrittori di viaggio occidentali, ha esplorato questo vasto paese alla vigilia dei tumulti di Tian’anmen, percorrendo quindicimila chilometri senza un itinerario preciso e dialogando con la gente comune. Ha assorbito la quiete desolata di Pechino e la vitalità brutale di Shanghai, riscoprendo a Suzhou la bellezza della Cina antica. Attraversando regioni remote e poco turistiche, dal fiume Mekong alle pendici dell’Himalaya, fino all’estremità nordoccidentale della Grande Muraglia, Thubron ha inizialmente avvertito l’impenetrabilità dei cinesi, la loro «immagine pubblica di arida inespressività». Tuttavia, grazie alla sua umanità e empatia, è riuscito a rivelarne l’essenza attraverso incontri memorabili: un’ex guardia rossa colpita dalla violenza del suo passato, giovani donne attratte da un futuro indipendente, monaci di santuari dimenticati, una ballerina costretta a badare ai maiali, contadini poveri ma ospitali, e professori con una mentalità in estinzione. Questo libro è ormai considerato un classico della letteratura di viaggio, con una scrittura lirica che restituisce una Cina lontana dagli stereotipi, catturando l’atmosfera malinconica e fiduciosa di un popolo in cerca di un cambiamento epocale.
Syberia opisana przez Thubrona okazuje się kwintesencją Rosji – na powierzchni resztki obozowych baraków sprzed 50 lat, a pod lodem mamuty zachowane tak, że można policzyć liście z ich ostatniego posiłku. I na przemian: jedno odmarza, a drugie zamarza. Thubron podróżuje po paradoksalnej krainie, która jednocześnie umiera i się odradza. Spod lodu wychodzi Kościół prawosławny, lokalne kultury, które miały stać się częścią jednego radzieckiego ludu, ale nie dały się do końca podporządkować, a zamarzają resztki sowieckiego imperium, stare obozy, instytuty badawcze i komunistyczne utopie budowane na wiecznej zmarzlinie. Gdzieś pod lodem i pod Rosją kryje się jednak coś potężnego, jednolitego, co kolejne ustroje chcą pokonać lub przeobrazić, ale w końcu zawsze stają się tylko jego częścią. Thubron stara się to opisać, pokazując fascynujące miejsca, bardziej i mniej znane. Podróż rozpoczyna w Jekaterynburgu, wspominając egzekucję rodziny carskiej, potem odwiedza m.in. Workutę (gdzie uczestniczy w prawosławnym nabożeństwie upamiętniającym ofiary łagrów), Akademgorodok pod Irkuckiem (miasto uczonych, dziś pozbawionych państwowych funduszy), jezioro Bajkał, syberyjski klasztor buddyjski, wreszcie Kołymę. Książka otrzymała w 2010 roku Nagrodę im. Nicolasa Bouviera.
Jedwabny Szlak to nie tylko historyczna trasa handlowa, ale także źródło romantycznych i awanturniczych wyobrażeń. Colin Thubron, podróżując przez Bliski i Daleki Wschód, Rosję oraz dawne republiki radzieckie, zaczyna swoją wyprawę w Xi’an, gdzie spoczywa Żółty Cesarz, wynalazca pisma i jedwabiu. Jego podróż, trwająca osiem miesięcy, obejmuje ponad jedenaście tysięcy kilometrów pokonanych autostopem, autobusami, ciężarówkami, a nawet na wielbłądzie. Jednak to nie tylko relacja z podróży i fascynujących krajobrazów. Thubron dostarcza wnikliwych obserwacji dotyczących zmian zachodzących w dzisiejszej Azji, w tym rewolucji ekonomicznej w Chinach oraz problemów mniejszości. Jego opowieść jest piękną i ważną relacją z współczesnego Jedwabnego Szlaku. Recenzenci podkreślają, że Thubron wędruje w rejony niedostępne dla większości, odkrywając nie tylko przestrzeń, ale także stan umysłu, pełen wiedzy i tajemnic. Jego umiejętność opowiadania sprawia, że staje się wiarygodnym przewodnikiem, który pozwala innym dzielić się swoimi historiami. To dzieło imponuje bogactwem informacji oraz literackim kunsztem, ukazując, jak Thubron odnajduje się na tej starożytnej autostradzie cywilizacji.
Nach dem Tod seiner Mutter pilgert der berühmte britische Schriftsteller Colin Thubron, ein welterfahrener, weiser alter Mann, nach Tibet. Es wird eine mühe volle Fußreise von Nepal über die tibetischen Pässe zu den magischen Seen unter dem heiligen Kailash, dem heiligsten Berg der Tibeter. Dort mischt er sich un ter die Pilger und nimmt an der rituellen Umrundung des Berges teil. Er spricht mit den Bergführern, mit Bewohnern abgelegener Dörfer, mit Mönchen in verfallenden Klöstern und bringt uns so die Seele der Tibeter näher. Ein tiefgrün diges Buch von großer Erzählkraft.
Ein Text-Bild-Band über die abenteuerliche Geschichte des Walfangs biszu Beginn des 20. Jh.
