East is West: Freya Stark featured in the New Yorker
15/04/2011 10:39:00
Freya Stark – the doyenne of Middle East travel writers and one of the most courageous and adventurous women travellers in history – is featured in April's New Yorker. Stark travelled extensively through Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq and Southern Arabia, where she became the first western woman to travel through the Hadhramaut. Usually solo, she ventured to places few Europeans had ever been. Her travels earned her the Founder’s Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society and she was created a Dame in 1975. She received huge public acclaim and her many, now classic, books include Traveller’s Prelude, The Valleys of the Assassins, Ionia, The Southern Gates of Arabia, Alexander’s Path, Dust in the Lion’s Paw and East in West.
Claudia Roth Pierpont's article on Stark, East is West, provides an excellent introduction to the life and writing of this fascinating woman. It is an honest account of the difficulties that Stark faced, and the often harsh realism that characterised her approach to those she met, but also highlights the determination, resourcefulness and insatiable curiosity that drove Stark throughout her extraordinary life. Stark's intelligence, wit and social grace are clear, and were essential to her success.
You can read the full article with a subscription to the New Yorker site or a short introduction without a subscription. Afterwards, why not plunge into Stark's beautiully crafted writing? Much of it is already available in The Freya Stark Collection, currently being republished by I.B.Tauris.