Russia and The Farther East
In 1981, during the Brezhnev era, Thubron broke with his earlier work (on cities and small countries) and travelled by car into the Soviet Union, a journey recorded in Among the Russians. This was followed in 1987 by Behind the Wall: A Journey Through China (winner of the Hawthornden Prize and the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award), and in 1994 by The Lost Heart of Asia, the record of a journey through the newly-independent nations of Central Asia. In 1999 came In Siberia,(Prix Bouvier, France), an exploration of the farthest reaches of the ex-Soviet Union, and in 2007 perhaps his most ambitious book to date, Shadow of the Silk Road. This 7,000-mile journey from China to the Mediterranean encompasses cultures that have obsessed his working life: Islam, China, the old Soviet Union, Central Asia, Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey.
In many ways Thubron's work harks back to an earlier age of travel writing. He is one of the last of the 'gentleman-travellers' - Eton-educated, erudite and willing to immerse himself in the countries in question for a long period of time. His journeys are tough and occasionally dangerous. But he is distinctive for his attention to languages, and his sympathetic encounters with local people.
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