Oceans of Sand

Santiago Gamboa

TRAVEL JOURNAL. MONDADORI, 2013. 182 PAGES.

In this travel diary of a trip through the Middle East, Santiago Gamboa recounts his experiences in Aleppo, Damascus, Jerusalem, Amman, Petra, and Aqaba: the habits and customs of the men and women, the exotic streets and markets, the architectural wonders, the clothes, the smells, the ebullience of the food and the ruins of ancient civilizations. And like every true writer he converts this material into something more: without our noticing it, his real path mingles with an intense interior journey in which he surveys the history of the area, the hatred and wars caused by ongoing disputes between Muslims and Jews, and in the end reflects on the petty bickering and lack of generosity of politics, the vanity of fanaticism, how the individual disappears when rancour and the will to power combine. These specific reflections are accompanied by more general meditations on literature, writing, solitude, love, death and life.

Oceans of Sand reminds us on every page that travel writing is, as the author says “one of literature’s most fascinating incarnations.”


 

PUBLISHED BY: Spanish worldwide MONDADORI 

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