The Places in Between »

Rory Stewart has written for the New York Times Magazine, Granta, and the London Review of Books, and is the author of The Places in Between. A former fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, he was awarded the Order of the British Empire by the British government for services in Iraq. He lives in Scotland.

In January 2002 Rory Stewart walked across Afghanistan-surviving by his wits, his knowledge of Persian dialects and Muslim customs, and the kindness of strangers. By day he passed through mountains covered in nine feet of snow, hamlets burned and emptied by the Taliban, and communities thriving amid the remains of medieval civilizations. By night he slept on villagers' floors, shared their meals, and listened to their stories of the recent and ancient past. Along the way Stewart met heroes and rogues, tribal elders and teenage soldiers, Taliban commanders and foreign-aid workers. He was also adopted by an unexpected companion-a retired fighting mastiff he named Babur in honor of Afghanistan's first Mughal emperor, in whose footsteps the pair was following.

Through these encounters-by turns touching, con-founding, surprising, and funny-Stewart makes tangible the forces of tradition, ideology, and allegiance that shape life in the map's countless places in between.

The New York Times - Tom Bissell

The book is replete with fascinating, if fearfully context-dependent, travel tips. If you are forced to lie about being a Muslim, claim you're from Indonesia, a Muslim nation few non-Indonesian Muslims know much about. Open land undefiled by sheep droppings has most likely been mined. If you're taking your donkey to high altitudes, slice open its nostrils to allow greater oxygen flow. Don't carry detailed maps, since they tend to suggest 007 affinities. If, finally, you're determined to do something as recklessly stupid as walk across a war zone, your surest bet to quash all the inevitable criticism is to write a flat-out masterpiece. Stewart did. Stewart has. The Places in Between is, in very nearly every sense, too good to be true.

Contents
 
Preface xi
The New Civil Service 1
Tanks into Sticks 6
Whether on the Shores of Asia 10
 
Part One 15
Chicago and Paris 17
Huma 19
Fare Forward 23
These Boots 30
 
Part Two 35
Qasim 37
Impersonal Pronoun 44
A Tajik Village 48
The Emir of the West 50
Caravanserai, Whose Portals . . . 56To a Blind Man’s Eye 62
Genealogies 69
Lest He Returning Chide . . . 74
Crown Jewels 85
Bread and Water 90
The Fighting Man Shall 95
A Nothing Man 99
 
Part Three 103
Highland Buildings 105
The Missionary Dance 112
Mirrored Cat’s-Eye Shades 117
Marrying a Muslim 120
War Dog 127
Commandant Haji (Moalem) Mohsin Khan of Kamenj 134
Cousins 141
 
Part Four 145
The Minaret of Jam 147
Traces in the Ground 157
Between Jam and Chaghcharan 161
Dawn Prayers 164
Little Lord 167
Frogs 172
The Windy Place 177 

Part Five 183
Name Navigation 185
The Greeting of Strangers 192
Leaves on the Ceiling 197
Flames 200
Zia of Katlish 203
The Sacred Guest 208
The Cave of Zarin 212
Devotions 217
The Defiles of the Valley 220
 
Part Six 227
The Intermediate Stages of Death 229
Winged Footprints 231
Blair and the Koran 234
Salt Ground and Spikenard 239
Pale Circles in Walls 242
@afghangov.org 245
While the Note Lasts 250

Part Seven 255
Footprints on the Ceiling 257
I Am the Zoom 260
Karaman 262
Khalili’s Troops 266
And I Have Mine 270
The Scheme of Generation 273
The Source of the Kabul River 276
Taliban 279
Toes 285
Marble 289
 
Epilogue 295
 
Acknowledgments 299