Knud Holmboe

The Quilliam Press (1994) ISBN 1872038107 paperback

10 black and white photos; 2 maps 281 pp. $17.95

In this classic of travel writing, first published sixty years ago, a Danish journalist records his experience of life in North Africa under colonial rule. Driving through the Sahara in a battered Chevrolet, having converted to Islam and with a knowledge of Arabic, he leaves the beaten track to discover communities and landscapes shrouded in mystery for centuries. Brushes with magicians, cave-dwellers and Sufi mystics, however, prove less astonishing than the cruelties inflicted on the local populations by Mussolini’s generals.