'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
