From Publishers Weekly
An account of a trip through war-torn and poverty-stricken Afghanistan, this remarkable book could have been titled "An Unexpected Beauty." Elliot, who first traveled to the country as a 19-year-old enthusiast of the mujahedin, has no illusions about the inherent shortcomings of travel writing ("a semi-fictional collection of descriptions that affirm the prejudices of the day"). He also dismisses the journalistic method, which relies on a single bombed-out street in Kabul to monolithically represent an entire nation. So it is not without some self-deprecation that he offers his own strange and improbable adventures in the country's lawless stretches and perilous mountain passes. "I had in mind a quietly epic sort of journey," he explains. "I had given up on earlier and more ambitious schemes and was prepared to make an ally of uncertainty, with which luck so often finds a partnership." Humorous, honest and wry, a devotee of Afghanistan's culture, Elliot strives to debunk the myth of "the inscrutability of the East" and paint, in careful detail, a portrait of a deeply spiritual people. For a first-time author, his literary talents are exceptional. His sonorous prose moves forward with the purposeful grace of a river; it reads like a text unearthed from an ancient land. (Feb.) Forecast: Already lauded in England, this book announces the arrival of a major travel writer. It should capture the hearts of armchair travelers who long for the grace, wit and irreverence of an era long gone. Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
This extraordinary debut is an account of Elliot's two visits to Afghanistan. The first occurred when he joined the mujaheddin circa 1979 and was smuggled into Soviet-occupied Afghanistan; the second happened nearly ten years later, when he returned to the still war-torn land. The skirmishes that Elliot painstakingly describes here took place between the Taliban and the government of Gen. Ahmad Shah Massoud in Kabul. Today, the Taliban are in power, but Elliot's sympathies clearly lie with Massoud. Although he thought long and hard before abandoning his plan to travel to Hazara territory, where "not a chicken could cross that pass without being fired on," Elliot traveled widely in the hinterland, visiting Faizabad in the north and Herat in the west. The result is some of the finest travel writing in recent years. With its luminous descriptions of the people, the landscape (even when pockmarked by landmines), and Sufism, this book has all the hallmarks of a classic, and it puts Elliot in the same league as Robert Byron and Bruce Chatwin. Enthusiastically recommended for all travel collections.DRavi Shenoy, Naperville P.L., IL Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Review
"The most sustained firsthand description of life in Afghanistan to be produced by a foreign observer in recent years . . . exciting."—Richard Bernstein, The New York Times

"A work of substance and style, witty and moving by turns, never less than wholly passionate . . . What raises the book to the level of a classic is its intensely personal meditation on the magic of unplanned adventure, of the pain and pleasure of pushing into the unknown."—The Times (London)

"The surprise of the year: a lyrical, unrestrained and enthralling account of a journey into Afghanistan . . . I loved this book."—Daily Telegraph

"This extraordinary debut is an account of Elliot's two visits to Afghanistan. The first occurred when he joined the mujaheddin circa 1979 and was smuggled into Soviet-occupied Afghanistan; the second happened nearly ten years later, when he returned to the still war-torn land. The skirmishes that Elliot painstakingly describes here took place between the Taliban and the government of Gen. Ahmad Shah Massoud in Kabul. Today, the Taliban are in power, but Elliot's sympathies clearly lie with Massoud. Although he thought long and hard before abandoning his plan to travel to Hazara territory, where 'not a chicken could cross that pass without being fired on,' Elliot traveled widely in the hinterland, visiting Faizabad in the north and Herat in the west. The result is some of the finest travel writing in recent years. With its luminous descriptions of the people, the landscape (even when pockmarked by landmines), and Sufism, this book has all the hallmarks of a classic, and it puts Elliot in the same league as Robert Byron and Bruce Chatwin."—Library Journal

"An Unexpected Light is often unexpectedly funny and constantly perceptive, but it is also profound."—Jason Goodwin, The New York Times Book Review

"Elliot is an enthralling writer with a great gift for evoking places, people and atmosphere, from the pastoral calm of a fertile valley to the terrifying sights and sounds of war."—Merle Rubin, The Los Angeles Times

"Lyrical . . . alluring . . . a poignant remembrance, hued in the mixed reds of war and sunset, that comes close to a place that has already changed beyond imagination."—Paula Newberg, San Francisco Chronicle Book Review

"Humorous, honest and wry . . . [Elliot's] literary talents are exceptional. His sonorous prose moves forward with the purposeful grace of a river."—Publishers Weekly (starred)

"An Unexpected Light is an unexpected gift . . . Elliot's account is vivid and should broaden the reader's comprehension of an often misunderstood country."—Jonathan Shipley, Columbus Dispatch

"The author's impressive knowledge of Afghanistan's history, his seemingly boundless affection for its people, his understanding and respect for their culture and religion, and his flair for the language make this more than a casual travelogue. It is a plaintive love song whose discordant notes are provided by daily encounters with violence, hardship, and poverty."—Kirkus Reviews

"An Unexpected Light thoughtfully lays out new and overlooked information that policy-makers in the U.S. and the West as a whole need when trying to decide what may work."—Robert A. Lincoln, Richmond-Times Dispatch

"I am sure this book will soon be among the classics of travel."—Doris Lessing

"An astonishing debut: one of the most remarkable travel books this decade."—Willam Dalrymple



Book Description
Part historical evocation, part travelogue, and part personal quest, An Unexpected Light is the account of Elliot's journey through Afghanistan, a country considered off-limits to travelers for twenty years. Aware of the risks involved, but determined to explore what he could of the Afghan people and culture, Elliot leaves the relative security of Kabul. He travels by foot and on horseback, and hitches rides on trucks that eventually lead him into the snowbound mountains of the North toward Uzbekistan, the former battlefields of the Soviet army's "hidden war." Here the Afghan landscape kindles a recollection of the author's life ten years earlier, when he fought with the anti-Soviet mujaheddin resistance during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

Weaving different Afghan times and visits with revealing insights on matters ranging from antipersonnel mines to Sufism, Elliot has created a narrative mosaic of startling prose that captures perfectly the powerful allure of a seldom-glimpsed world.



About the Author
Jason Elliot lives in London. This is his first book.

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
Ever since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the late 1970s, the small nation has languished in an aura of mystery as thick as the dust that chokes its craggy landscape. As a result, writers who have attempted to penetrate this mystery, from Doris Lessing to William T. Vollmann, inevitably flounder in the process. In his sumptuous, elegantly written first book, An Unexpected Light, Jason Elliot deftly avoids this pitfall, plunging headfirst into the hurly-burly world of Afghanistan's culture, politics, and history. Unearthing the beginnings of a people descended from half a dozen cultures and now wracked by a costly civil war, he reveals a country of great depth and humanity, one that survives by the grace of a stubborn and alluring dignity.

Like the best travel books, An Unexpected Light enters its territory through the imagination and memory of its author. Afghanistan first took a hold in Elliot's mind when, as a youngster growing up in the late '70s, he sympathized with the plight of its beleaguered people. As a 19-year-old college student, he arranged to be smuggled inside its borders during a summer vacation. Elliot's risky visit, aided and abetted by the mujaheddin, freedom fighters holding off Soviet troops, quickly dispelled his romantic notions of war. Shells, bullets, and the shock waves of exploding artillery provided numerous close calls, which recounted here, raise the hairs of armchair travelers. Yet these experiences did not slake Elliot's thirst to learn more about Afghanistan.

Ten years later he reentered the country during the Taliban's rise to power. This visit becomes the driving force of his book's narrative, which zigzags between history, the present, and Elliot's personal memories of his hasty and dangerous first visit. Although his forays into Afghanistan's history and the ideas of Sufism are fascinating and well researched, An Unexpected Light truly soars when recounting Elliot's many improbable adventures. Elliot is a natural storyteller, and he sketches with ironic and touching detail the cagey expat community in Kabul, the war-wracked capital city. When he heads north, led by self-effacing guides toward the beautiful mountainous regions near the Uzbekistan border, Elliot's prose sings with rich and sensitively recorded particulars of the Afghan culture and landscape.

In the end, like the best in travel literature, An Unexpected Light is as meditatively philosophical as it is poetically exact. Hopping into a jeep with ten strangers on his way to a region peppered with constant shelling, Elliot writes: "There it was again, that feeling that the journey was becoming more than the sum of its parts, more like a clandestine sculpting work within me, which in the visible world I was merely acting out." It is a testament to the power of this book, that without setting foot on Afghan soil, the reader feels the tingling of this secret process beginning inside him as well.

John Freeman is a freelance writer who lives in New York.

ANNOTATION

Winner of the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Part historical evocation, part travelogue, and part personal quest, An Unexpected Light is the account of Elliot's journey through Afghanistan, a country considered off-limits to travelers for twenty years. Aware of the risks involved, but determined to explore what he could of the Afghan people and culture, Elliot leaves the relative security of Kabul. He travels by foot and on horseback, and hitches rides on trucks that eventually lead him into the snowbound mountains of the North toward Uzbekistan, the former battlefields of the Soviet army's "hidden war." Here the Afghan landscape kindles a recollection of the author's life ten years earlier, when he fought with the anti-Soviet mujaheddin resistance during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

Weaving different Afghan times and visits with revealing insights on matters ranging from antipersonnel mines to Sufism, Elliot has created a narrative mosaic of startling prose that captures perfectly the powerful allure of a seldom-glimpsed world.

FROM THE CRITICS

Times

A work of substance and style, witty and moving by turns, never less than wholly passionate... What raises the book to the level of a classic is its intensely personal meditation on the magic of unplanned adventure, of the pain and pleasure of pushing into the unknown.

Daily Telegraph

[A] lyrical, unrestrained, and enthralling account of a journey into Afghanistan.... I loved this book.

Observer

[An Unexpected Light] will make frequent travelers to the country aware of how jaded they have become and give those who have never been there a wonderful sense of what it is like. And that, after all, is what a travel book is meant to do.

Sunday Telegraph

[An Unexpected Light] evokes the romantic allure so potently that you think you are actually traveling there yourself. Written with affection and respect, it avoids sentimentality. It is a long time since I have read a new travel book with such unalloyed pleasure.

Spectator

Jason Elliot is an entertaining companion in a heartbreaking land, and his stylish prose is laced with intelligent analysis of a culture startlingly remote from our own. Read all 9 "From The Critics" >

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