Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
In perhaps the last classical journey across the Arabian peninsula, Jan Morris accompanied the Sultan on a royal exploration of his desert country. This journey from Salalah to Muscat was the Sultan’s first visit to the interior of his own country and the first crossing of the Omani desert in a car.
The Jan Morris book?
This is a lovely book, a hidden classic. It’s gently and honestly written. She was invited by the Sultan to accompany him in a “royal progress” from Salalah to Muscat in the early 50s. The charm of this book is in the wonderfully observed detail, and there are surreal twists because of being part of somebody else’s entourage and relinquishing control over proceedings. They made the crossing in cars and there are descriptions of the ragged and majestical terrain, of the makeshift encampments they rested in along the way. It was the first car journey ever made across the interior of Oman. The Sultan was making the journey to settle issues related to oil and there is a good deal of detail on the whispering and politicking that accompanied the ruler’s entourage and the run-ins with the locals in the sultanate’s neglected outposts. Morris describes this now forgotten world and the small, discombobulating glimpses of modernity that met them along the way. There is a description of Sheikh Shakhbut of Abu Dhabi, who rides to meet them in his yellow Cadillac. It’s a lovely glimpse of a very strange journey.
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Jo Tatchell is the author of A Diamond in the Desert, an illuminating portrait that gets behind the scenes in Abu Dhabi, the world’s richest city. Her first book, Nabeel’s Song: A Family Story of Survival in Iraq, was published by Sceptre in 2006 and was shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award. She writes on Middle Eastern culture and music for UK and US media.
