Author(s): Mackintosh-Smith, Tim

Travel Literature

Ibn Battutah, the greatest traveller of the pre-mechanical age, set out in 1325 from his native Tangier on the pilgrimage to Mecca. By the time he returned 29 years later, he had visited most of the known world, travelling three times the distance Marco Polo allegedly covered. Spiritual backpacker, tireless social climber, temporary hermit and failed ambassador, he braved brigands, blisters and his own prejudices. This text follows the first stage of the Moroccan's eccentric journey, from Tangier to Constantinople. Tim Mackintosh-Smith was studying Arabic at Oxford when he first visited Yemen and became obsessed with the place and its language. He has lived there since 1982. His first book, Yemen: The Unknown Arabia, won the Thomas Cook/Daily Telegraph Travel Book Award and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year in 2000. Hardback