Arabian Sands

Wilfred Thesiger (1959)

THE A5 BOOK REVIEW

Arabian Sands is a travelogue by the British explorer Wilfred Thesiger covering two journeys he made across the Empty Quarter of the Arabian Peninsula between 1945 and 1950, just after the Second World War. The Empty Quarter, or the Rub’ al Khali, is the largest continuous desert in the world, populated by nomadic Arabs who had likely never seen a European person. Thesiger’s disdain for the softness in Western culture and his thirst for exploration are endearing; and his respect for local culture and meeting local people is admirable. He particularly loved the isolation and beauty of the desert. This classic in travel literature provides an in-depth look into the region and the impact of large scale development after WWII on the Bedouin way of life.

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ABOUT WILFRED THESIGER

Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003) was an English explorer and writer, best known for his journeys to remote Arabian destinations. While best known by far for Arabian Sands, he also wrote a book called The Marsh Arabs (1964) about his time living with in Iraq. Thesiger was knighted in 1995 upon his return to England. He was also a prolific travel photographer; he donated a collection of 38,000 negatives to the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford.

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GREAT QUOTES:

"I had learnt the satisfaction which comes from hardship and the pleasure which derives from abstinence; the contentment of a full belly; the richness of meat; the taste of clean water; the ecstasy of surrender when the craving of sleep becomes a torment; the warmth of a fire in the chill of dawn.”
- Wilfred Thesiger, Arabian Sands

“I pondered on this desert hospitality and, compared it with our own. I remembered other encampments where I had slept, small tents on which I had happened in the Syrian desert and where I had spent the night. Gaunt men in rags and hungry-looking children had greeted me, and bade me welcome with the sonorous phrases of the desert. Later they had set a great dish before me, rice heaped round a sheep which they had slaughtered, over which my host poured liquid golden butter until it flowed down on to the sand; and when I protested, saying 'Enough! Enough!', had answered that I was a hundred times welcome. Their lavish hospitality had always made me uncomfortable, for I had known that as a result of it they would go hungry for days. Yet when I left them they had almost convinced me that I had done them a kindness by staying with them”
- Wilfred Thesiger, Arabian Sands

INTERESTING LINKS:

Read the 2007 New York Times review of Arabian Sands and Thesiger's exploration in this area.
Sir Wilfred Thesiger died in 2003. Click here for his obituary in the Guardian.