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Over the last thirty years, Tahir Shah has roamed the furthest limits of the world, and produced a stupefying body of travel literature, embracing a cornucopia of quests. He has sought out the so-called Birdmen of Peru, studied magic with the godmen of India, searched for the mysterious lost city of the Incas, and for the fabled lost treasure of Mughal India. Shah has noted that seeking out the hidden underbelly of the lands through which he t...

First published thirty years ago, The Middle East Bedside Book illuminates lesser-known facets of Arab culture and folklore, presenting the region from the inside out. Considering the observations of writers, artists, philosophers and kings, the book is an invaluable and spellbinding resource. All manner of areas are covered - from the origins of chess as a courtly game in battle strategy, to costume, politics, music, and even the history and ...

The third book in Tahir Shah's series of Nasrudin stories, The Voyages and Vicissitudes of Nasrudin builds on the foundations laid down by The Misadventures of the Mystifying Nasrudin and The Peregrinations of the Perplexing Nasrudin, completing the trilogy. In turn, the three volumes of Nasrudin tales are underpinned by Shah's celebrated travelogue, Travels With Nasrudin. Part of an ancient hybrid of 'foolish wisdom', Nasrudin tales have been...

The first book in Tahir Shah's trilogy of Nasrudin stories, The Misadventures of the Mystifying Nasrudin builds on his highly acclaimed travelogue - Travels With Nasrudin. Having been raised in a household in which the wise fool of Oriental folklore was regarded both as an honorary member of the family, and as a problem solver par excellence, Shah was encouraged from an early age to regard the world around him through the lens of Nasrudin's hu...

The second book in Tahir Shah's trilogy of Nasrudin stories, The Peregrinations of the Perplexing Nasrudin follows hot on the heels of The Misadventures of the Mystifying Nasrudin, and the highly acclaimed Travels With Nasrudin. Although uproariously funny, Nasrudin tales are regarded as complex psychological machineries in their own right - the kind of tales that have simultaneously provided laughter and problem-solving for centuries across O...

Travels With Myself is a dazzling collection of selected writings by bestselling travel writer and novelist, Tahir Shah. Written over twenty years, the pieces form an eclectic treasury of stories from Latin America, Asia, Africa, and beyond. Some consider the lives of women in society - both in East and West. The women-only police stations of Brazil, for instance, as well as the female inmates waiting to die on America's death row, or the youn...

In 1918, Tahir Shah's grandfather, The Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah, published the small volume of 'poetry in prose' - Eastern Moonbeams. The book marked not only the beginning of a glittering literary career, but the start of something far greater.In the century since The Sirdar's first publication, three generations of the same family have released hundreds of books - the bulk of them bridging West with East.A Son of a Son comprises a selection of ...

For more than a century, three authors from one celebrated literary family - a grandfather, father, and son - have written hundreds of books, many of which seek to bridge West with East.The Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah began his writing career with a small volume of 'poetry in prose', published in Edinburgh in 1918. In the decades that followed, The Sirdar wrote scores of books, the majority of which were aimed at describing the cultures of the East ...

Enthralled by a line from the chronicle of a sixteenth-century monk which suggested that the Incas 'flew over the jungle like birds', and by the recurring theme of flying in Peruvian folklore, Tahir Shah sets out to discover whether the Incas really did fly or glide above the rainforest of Peru.Or was the Spanish cleric alluding to flight of a different kind - one inspired by a powerful hallucinogen, the so-called Vine of the Dead? After gathe...

Inspired by a book his grandfather wrote eighty years ago, master storyteller and author Tahir Shah set about creating Scorpion Soup, an intense experience of interlinked and overlapping tales.Having been raised on stories from both East and West, Shah believes that tales work on numerous levels, subtly influencing the way we see the world, and the way we learn from it. Magical instruments, and secret machineries in their own right, stories li...

When the Spanish Conquistadors swept through Peru in the sixteenth century, they were searching for great golden treasure. In 1572 they stormed the Inca stronghold of Vilcabamba, only to find the city deserted, burned, and already stripped of its wealth. A legend says that the Incas had retreated deep into the jungle, where they built another magnificent city in an inaccessible quarter of the cloud forest. And for more than four centuries expl...

In a career that has embraced fiction and non-fiction, and bridged West with East, Tahir Shah has frequently commented on his own work - or on that of other authors - in a series of supplementary essays.For the first time, the dozens of Prefaces, Introductions, Forewords and Afterwords produced by Shah have been collected and published in a volume of their own.Fascinating for admirers of his literary corpus, the texts illuminate how and why Sh...

For more than a century Henry Rider Haggard's novel King Solomon's Mines has inspired generations of young men to set forth in search of adventure. But long before Rider Haggard's classic, explorers, theologians and scientists scoured the known world for the source of Solomon's astonishing wealth. The Bible's wisest king built a temple at Jerusalem that was said to be more fabulous than any other landmark in the ancient world. Adorned with an ...

Oddball and loner Oliver Quinn was raised by his uncle, the proprietor of Ozymandias & Son, New York's most bizarre emporium of Oriental rugs.Through a series of what he believes to be coincidences, Oliver discovers a portal in the basement of the shop - a portal to a magical world called Zonus.Gradually, Oliver begins to understand that everything he'd ever considered fact is fantasy, and that if he is to survive, he'll have to start thinking...

As a child in rural England, Tahir Shah first learned the secrets of illusion from a visiting Indian magician, the hereditary guardian of his ancestor's tomb. More than two decades later he set out to India on a quest: to study the form of magic used across the subcontinent on a daily basis by so-called 'godmen'.Making his way to Kolkata, Tahir is taken on by Hakim Feroze, magician, illusionist, sadist, master, and irrepressible polymath, befo...

As a child living in the English countryside, a constant stream of people turned up at Tahir Shah's family home, all in search of his father - the writer and thinker Idries Shah. Among them were literary giants, including the classicist Robert Graves, Nobel laureate Doris Lessing, and the celebrated American novelist, J. D. Salinger.On one occasion when Salinger had just departed, Tahir asked why the author of The Catcher in the Rye wrote book...

An image had rooted itself in my mind.That of an ingenuous fresh-faced American arriving at Casablanca's airport at the start of a mid-life crisis.I could see him clearly.Dressed in a crumpled old Burberry raincoat and fedora, he was a clone of Humphrey Bogart of Rick's Café Americain.Each night before I drifted off to sleep, I allowed myself to imagine the adventures of the Casablanca-obsessed visitor.Within a week or so I had an entire story...

When his stage show goes spectacularly wrong, celebrated magician Harry Singh, a.k.a. The Great Maharaja Malipasse, becomes a laughing-stock and outcast. Having resorted to two-bit performances in the pouring rain on Blackpool Pier, the down-on-his-luck conjurer is talked into travelling to India by his best friend and assistant, Bitu, in an effort to restore their luck. After twists and turns, the pair find themselves at the Kumbh Mela. Bille...

Celebrated as an author of travel and fiction, Tahir Shah has published more than forty books in a career that's spanned three decades. In that time he's turned his hand to many kinds of writing - from journalism to novels, and from travelogues to cultural research.Until now he has never published work written for the screen.'I'm a believer that if you're a writer you have a duty to experiment, ' he says, 'in the same way an artist explores di...

Forty-five million years ago, the supercontinent of Gondwanaland split apart, creating what we know as India, Africa, and South America. Curiously, this vast landmass was named after the aboriginal tribe of Gonds, who lived in central India.Meeting a Gond storyteller on a visit to Mumbai, Tahir Shah first learned of their ancient saga - the epic Tale of Lingo - and vowed to visit all three regions of prehistoric Gondwanaland.As he travels both...