My Family and Other Enemies is part travelogue, part memoir that dives into the hinterland of Croatia. Mary Novakovich explores her ongoing relationship with the region of Lika in central Croatia, where her parents were born. In recounting her own family’s tumultuous history, Novakovich opens up a world that is little known outside the Balkans, telling the stories of people whose experiences weren’t widely reported at the time, when the devastation in Croatia was superseded by the Bosnian conflict and media attention moved elsewhere.
To head for a place on foot is to – meander and wander.. ramble and amble.. stroll and saunter.. strut and scuff.. loiter and lurch.. ambulate and.. well, just walk. Furthermore, don’t we set out across all sorts of landscapes and cityscapes, in all sorts of weathers, for all sorts of reasons? Be they physical or psychological reasons, personal or public, sometimes even political?
And, isn’t it about time we had insight into this?
In 1867, so the story goes, Mariano Melgarejo, the 15th president of Bolivia, asked the British ambassador to pay respects to his latest mistress. When the request was haughtily declined, Melgarejo, whose time in office was marked by brutality and political miscalculation, took great offence. The ambassador was swiftly apprehended, stripped naked, tied to an ass – facing the rear, naturally – and paraded around the main square of La Paz, before being kicked out of the country.
The award winning travel writer Dervla Murphy turns 90 on Sunday 28th November. Stanfords wishes her a very happy birthday.
Irish Examiner News Picture 01-10-2011 Saturday Social Page. Travel writer Dervla Murphy at her home in Lismore, Co Waterford. Picture: Dan Linehan
Dervla Murphy has won worldwide praise for her writing and has been described as a ‘travel legend’ and ‘the First Lady of Irish cycling’. In March she joined Bill Bryson, Michael Palin, Jan Morris, Colin Thubron and Paul Theroux and became a recipient of the Edward Stanford Award for Outstanding Contribution to Travel Writing.
Our Book of the Month for August, from the winner of the Nan Shepherd Prize, takes us from London to New Zealand, Shanghai to Malaysia via a lyrical, poetic essay collection that blends memoir with powerful writing on the natural world.
Home is many people and places and languages, some separated by oceans.
In our Book of the Month for July, Londoner Tharik Hussain sets off with his wife and young daughters around the Western Balkans, home to the largest indigenous Muslim population in Europe, and explores the regions of Eastern Europe where Islam has shaped places and people for more than half a millennium. Encountering blonde-haired, blue-eyed Muslims, visiting mystical Islamic lodges clinging to the side of mountains, and praying in mosques older than the Sistine Chapel, he paints a picture of a hidden Muslim Europe, a vibrant place with a breathtaking history, spellbinding culture and unique identity.
Minarets in The Mountains, the first English travel narrative by a Muslim writer on this subject, also explores the historical roots of European Islamophobia. Tharik and his family learn lessons about themselves and their own identity as Britons, Europeans and Muslims. Following in the footsteps of renowned Ottoman traveller Evliya Celebi, they remind us that Europe is as Muslim as it is Christian, Jewish or pagan.
Like William Dalrymple’s In Xanadu, this is a vivid reimagining of a region’s cultural heritage, unveiling forgotten Muslim communities, empires and their rulers; and like Kapka Kassabova’s Border, it is a quest that forces us to consider what makes up our own identities, and more importantly, who decides?
Watch Tharik Hussain introduce Minarets in the Mountains.
In our Book of the Month for May, I Belong Here: A Journey Along the Backbone of Britain, Anita Sethi invites us on journey of reclamation through the natural landscapes of the North, brilliantly exploring identity, nature, place and belonging. Beautifully written and truly inspiring, I Belong Here heralds a powerful and refreshing new voice in nature writing.
Launched in 2015, the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards (ESTWA) seek to celebrate the best travel writing, and travel writers, in the world.
Titles have been shortlisted for the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year in association with the Authors’ Club for their innovative and/or literary merit with content which is relevant, useful or inspiring to travellers.
Now in its fifth year, the prestigious Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards (ESTWA) exists to champion the very best travel writing in the world. The nominations include both multi-award winning titles and debut authors with books that will both stimulate thought and inspire travel, while bringing lesser-known parts of the world sharply into focus.
The shortlist of 57 books, divided into ten awards categories, will take the reader on a fascinating, and sometimes challenging, voyage into our planet’s past and future, across the seven continents and into hidden corners and unexplored cultures.
