A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush (25 page)

ERIC NEWBY
was born in London in 1919 and was educated at St Paul’s School. In 1938, he joined the four-masted Finnish barque
Moshulu
as an apprentice and sailed in the last Grain Race from Australia to Europe, by way of Cape Horn. During World War II, he served in the Black Watch and the Special Boat Section. In 1942, he was captured and remained a prisoner-of-war until 1945. He subsequently married the girl who helped him escape, and for the next fifty years, his wife Wanda was at his side on many adventures. After the war, his world expanded still further – into the fashion business and book publishing. Whatever else he was doing, Newby always travelled on a grand scale, either under his own steam or as the Travel Editor for the
Observer
. He was made a CBE in 1994 and was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award of the British Guild of Travel Writers in 2001. Eric Newby died in 2006.

From the reviews of
A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush
:

‘The most successful travel writer of his generation. It’s impossible to read this book without laughing aloud’

Observer

‘One of the most enjoyable reads of the last century’

Herald Tribune

‘Endlessly entertaining and self-deprecating’

Daily Mail

‘Full of serendipity and surprise’

Economist

‘A total success’

New Yorker

‘
A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush
established him as a traveller who not only journeyed fruitfully but had the ability to bring his readers with him’

WILLIAM TREVOR
,
Guardian

‘I still think the last few sentences of
A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush
the funniest ending to any book I have read’

GEOFFREY MOORHOUSE
,
The Times

‘The book that made [Newby’s] reputation … typically ironic in its understatement’

Observer

‘Newby is easily the best of the bunch’

Sunday Times

The Last Grain Race

Something Wholesale

Slowly Down the Ganges

Grain Race: Pictures of Life Before the Mast in a Windjammer

Love and War in the Apennines

The Mitchell Beazley World Atlas of Exploration

Great Ascents: A Narrative History of Mountaineering

The Big Red Train Ride

A Traveller’s Life

On the Shores of the Mediterranean

A Book of Travellers’ Tales
(ed.)

Round Ireland in Low Gear

What the Traveller Saw

A Small Place in Italy

A Merry Dance Around the World: The Best of Eric Newby

Learning the Ropes: An Apprentice in the

Last of the Windjammers

Departures and Arrivals

Harper
Press

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Publishers

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This Harper
Press
edition published 2010

First published by Secker & Warburg 1958

First published in paperback by Arrow 1961

Published by Picador in 1974 in association with William Collins Sons

Fiftieth anniversary edition published by Picador 2008

Copyright © Eric Newby 1958

Preface copyright © Evelyn Waugh 1959

Epilogue copyright © Hugh Carless 2008

Eric Newby asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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