Marrakesh: Through Writers' Eyes (Through Writers's Eyes) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0907871992 ISBN 13: 9780907871996

Verlag: Eland Publishing, 2007

Inhaltsangabe

Marrakesh is the drum that beats an African rhythm into the complex soul of Morocco. There has never been a more fashionable nor a more instantly exotic destination than Marrakesh. It is a dream landscape; in the background the steel blue of the High Atlas mountains with their snowy tops, then a hint of the desert, then vast, weathered, red- earth ramparts, tall tapering palms, orchards of oranges and silvery olives. In the evening, life concentrates on that disordered square of marvels the Djemma el Fna - where storytellers, fortune- tellers, cooks, musicians, acrobats and dancers weave their nightly magic - and the packed, festive alleys of the mercantile souk. This book explores the city's mystique through the researches, speculations and scholarship of forty writers who have succumbed to the enchantment of the city. The editor has used his own forty-year obsession with the country to quarry out old accounts and intriguing incidents as well as to commission essays from contemporary writers and residents. This gives the reader privileged access to the web of stories that enrich this great, beguiling city. With a preface by Tahir Shah and six original woodcuts by Mungo McCosh

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Barnaby Rogerson is a writer, publisher and television presenter. Barnaby has appeared on the BBC Life of Muhammad, Al Jazeera's Caliph and in many of Pilot productions, Muslim Empires series.

Barnaby was born in Scotland in 1960. Travel was a vital aspect of his childhood which followed in the wake of his father's career in the Royal Navy with postings to Gibraltar, Malta, Skye and Virginia. A degree in History from St Andrews University proved to be adequate preparation for work as a barman, tutor for a child star in a film made on a Greek island and a pony boy on a Highland estate. He worked for two independent publishers which led to a job in the press department of the Afghanistan Support Committee. A chance encounter in the Outer Hebrides led to his first commission to write a guidebook: Morocco (which went into six editions) was followed by Tunisia, Cyprus, Istanbul and Libya. Research for these guidebooks was partly funded by working as a lecturer, tour guide and journalist. A scrapbook of over three hundred articles (written for Cornucopia, TLS, Independent, Guardian, Telegraph and Country Life) has subsequently been pasted up on a website, Barnaby Rogerson.com

The birth of two daughters encouraged him to stay at home more often, so he wrote a History of North Africa, followed by a Biography of the Prophet Muhammad, then an account of the early Caliphate, The Heirs of the Prophet. The Last Crusaders (1415-1580) was an ambitious attempt to show how the Crusades against North Africa and the Ottoman Empire led to the emergence of the first colonial conquest states. This would be followed by In Search of Ancient North Africa, which tells the complex story of conquest and assimilation through six lives. He has recently finished A House Divided, a book looking at conflict zones within the Middle East complicated by the Shia-Sunni schism within Islam.

Barnaby has also worked on a number of joint projects. He contributed the text for Don McCullin's photographic study of Roman North Africa and the Levant, Southern Frontiers, co-edited a collection of the contemporary travel writing Ox-Tales for the charity Oxfam, edited a collection of the travel literature of Marrakech, a collection of contemporary travel encounters with Islam; Meetings with Remarkable Muslims, a collection of English Orientalist verse, Desert Air, and a collection of the poetry of place of London. He has also put together a collection of the sacred numbers of the world, Rogerson's Book of Numbers.

Barnaby was on the advisory board of Critical Muslim, the editorial board of Middle East in London and is a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society and the Royal Geographical Society and a member of the Royal Society of Asian Affairs. He was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and a made an honorary member of The Travellers Club.

His day job is running Eland, a publishing house, which specializes in keeping classic travel books in print: www.travelbooks.co.uk

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Eland Publishing
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2007
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0907871992
• ISBN 13: 9780907871996
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 322
• Herausgeber: Rogerson Barnaby
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: GPSR Kontakt; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland