Description
Book SynopsisTravel writing is a genre monopolised by Westerners. For centuries the preserve of Europeans who reported on the "exotic", it sought to make sense of other landscapes and cultures, but almost exclusively through a European prism of references. This anthology, stretching from the fifth to the nineteenth centuries, introduces an entirely different tradition of travel writing - the work of travellers from the world beyond Europe. Other Routes collects important primary work by travel writers from Asia and Africa in English translation. Encompassing spiritual journeys, the personal, ethnography, natural history, geography, cartography, navigation, politics, history, religion and diplomacy, it shows that Africans and Asians also travelled the world and left travel writing worth reading. An introduction by Tabish Khair discusses travel literature as a genre, the perception of travel and writing about travel as a European privilege, and the emergence of new writings that show that travel has been a human occupation that crosses time and culture. Selections include The Travels of a Japanese Monk (c. 838), Al-Abdari, The Disgruntled Traveller (c. 1290), A Korean Official's Account of China (1488), The Poetry of Basho's Road (1689), Malabari: A Love-Hate Affair with the British (1890).
Trade Review"What sets apart the narratives in this volume is that the writers who feature in it are not seized by a compulsion to fit what they see into familiar narratives - thus their meticulousness in noting details and noticing the unfamiliar. And this too is why this collection is so timely and necessary: because it reminds us of the spirit in which we undertake our most instructive and pleasurable journeys." From the Preface by Amitav Ghosh
Table of ContentsPreface by Amitav Ghosh; General Introduction by Tabish Khair; Note on the Process of Editing; PILGRIMAGES; 1. Three Chinese Scholars go 'West' to India (5th -7th century); 2. The Travels of a Japanese Monk (c. 838); 3. The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon (c. 990); 4. The Haj and Other Journeys of ibn Jubayr (b. 1145); 5. The Pilgrimages of Lady Nijo (b. 1271); STUDIES; 6. Al-buruni's Defence of Hindu India (1030 AD); 7. The Horizons of al-Idrisi in the 11th Century; 8. Two Chinese Accounts of the Early Mongols (1221 and 1237); 9. A Chinese Account of the Lost City of Angkor (1297); 10. Navigating with ibn Majid (floreat 1460); 11. Piri Reis: The Voyages of a 'Corsair' (c. 1526); 12. The Ambivalences of Leo Africanus (1526); AUTOBIOGRAPHIES, DIARIES AND MEMOIRES; 13. The Memoirs of a Syrian Prince-Polymath (b. 1273); 14. A Korean Official's Account of China (1488); 15. The Travel Memoirs of Babur (b. 1482); 16. The European Diaries of Uruch Beg (b. 1560); 17. The Travel Diaries of Xu Xiake (1623); 18. Equiano's Voyage to Slavery and Freedom (1789); 19. Dean Mahomed Writes from the Centre (c. 1793); 20. African Muslim Slave Narratives of the 19th Century; 21. The Diary of Queen Emma of Hawaii (b. 1836); 22. The Shah of Iran in European Corridors (1873); 23. An African-Arab Princess in Europe (1881); TRAVEL ACCOUNTS; 24. A Merchant of Baghdad Reports on a Viking Funeral (A.D. 922); 25. Al-Abdari, the Disgruntled Traveller (c. 1290); 26. Ibn Battutah, World Traveller (b. 1304); 27. An Arab Cleric in South America (1668-83); 28. The Poetry of Basho's Road (1689); 29. Mirza I'tesamuddin's Wonders of Vilayet (1765); 30. An Indian Aristocrat in Africa and Europe (1803); 31. Al-Amraoui: Moroccan Ambassador to Europe (1860); 32. Blyden: A Pan-Africanist's Voyage to Palestine (1873); 33. Malabari: A Love-Hate Affair with the British (1890); Copyright Acknowledgements; Bibliography; Index
