Glory in a Camel's Eye

Book excerpt: An “amazing” true account of traveling with Bedouins through a drought-stricken North African landscape (The Boston Globe). Having journeyed in the past across Siberia and up the Congo, Jeffrey Tayler was well accustomed to adventure and danger. But even this experienced travel writer was unprepared for the physical challenges that awaited him in a Sahara desiccated by eight years of unprecedented drought. In this book, he recounts his travels across a landscape of nightmares—charred earth, blinding sky, choking gales, and what is fittingly called the Valley of the Dead—and manages to describe the trip with “hilarious, horrifying, and wonderfully edifying details” (The Boston Globe). The last Westerner to attempt this trek left his skeleton in the sand, and even Tayler’s camels wilt in the searing wastes. But his remarkable perseverance, as well as his fluency in classical and Moroccan Arabic, helps him find here a bracing purity. The Saharawi Bedouin among whom he journeys are untouched by the modernity or radicalism that festers elsewhere in the Arab world. By revealing their ingenuity, their wit, their unrivaled hospitality, and more, Tayler upends our notions of what is, and what is not, essentially Arab. “Beautifully rendered . . . Tayler’s guides provide constant entertainment.” —The Seattle Times “Fascinating and informative.” —Booklist