The World’s Best Travel Book
“The Way of the World” is a 1950s travelogue of a trip that Nicolas Bouvier and Thierry Vernet took from Geneva to the Khyber Pass in their faithful FIAT Topolino. Bouvier’s account is now famous amongst travel literature lovers and is generally considered to be the best travel book ever written.
Letters from Hanoi
When the festivities for the 1000 Year Founding of Hanoi were being planned, the Goethe Institute commissioned a new Music Theatre piece for the occasion, to be performed in the Vietnamese capital’s Opera House. Director Beverly Blankenship spent three months in Hanoi preparing and staging the ambitious new piece based on the myth of Parzival. These are her letters home.
Le Trio Joubran
Three brothers from Palestine, all playing the “oud”, make up Le Trio Joubran. Wissam Joubran talks to The Global Dispatches about their recent film soundtrack, their work with the legendary poet Mahmoud Darwish and the plight of the Palestinian people.
Interview with David Hirst
The veteran Middle East journalist talks to The Global Dispatches about his new book “Beware of Small States”. A history of Lebanon and the Middle East, from the end of Ottoman rule to the Hizbullah and Hamas wars of today.
Withnail & I – 25 Years On
It’s one of the most-loved of all British films. It’s almost certainly the most-quoted one. And its popularity has never been greater. So why have so many people never heard of it?
Iconography of the Annunciation
The history of the Annunciation and its iconography in Early Christian Art
Travels with Ibn Battutah
Yemen-based writer Tim Mackintosh-Smith talks to TGD about Landfalls, the third and final volume of a trilogy describing his journeys round the world in the footsteps of the inveterate 14th century Moroccan traveller Ibn Battutah.
Rituals of the Russian Banya
Steam baths are well-known in many European countries, but maybe only in Russia is the steam-bathing “banya” tradition such a subject of national pride and an attribute of Russianness, and rightly so.
Turkey’s Elections
On 24 June, both presidential and parliamentary elections will take place in Turkey. With less than two months to go, the country is in campaign mood. The discussions range from the candidates, the election alliances, strategies and agendas, as if Turkey were still a country with fair elections.
Relaunching French –a very messy business
By 2050, Africa will be home to 85% of all French-speakers. Consider: more people speak French in Kinshasa, Congo’s capital city, than in Paris.