A Winter in Arabia : A Journey Through Yemen

From within this beautifully crafted and deeply knowledgeable narrative emerges a rare and exquisitely rendered portrait of the customs and cultures of the tribes of the Arabian Peninsula. Freya Stark is most famous for her travels in Arabia at a time when very few men, let alone women, had fully explored its vast hinterlands.In 1934, she made her first journey to the Hadhramaut in what is now Yemen - the first woman to do so alone. Even though that journey ended in disappointment, sickness and a forced rescue, Stark, undeterred, returned to Yemen two years later.Starting in Mukalla and skirting the fringes of the legendary and unexplored Empty Quarter, she spent the winter searching for Shabwa - ancient capital of the Hadhramaut and a holy grail for generations of explorers. A Winter in Arabia is one of the most important pieces of literature on the region and a book that placed Freya Stark in the pantheon of great writers and explorers of the Arab world.To listen to her voice is to hear the rich echoes of a land whose 'nakedness is clothed in shreds of departed splendour'.