The Light Garden of the Angel King: Travels in Afghanistan: Journeys in Afghanistan

Peter Levi gives us an experience of Afghanistan before it was torn apart by all the wars that have destroyed what must have been a wonderful country.

Excellent!

Another masterpiece.

The light garden of the angel king is an account of a journey around Afghanistan undertaken by peter levi together with a young Bruce Chatwin. What makes Levi’s journeyso fascinating is the time in which he undertook his journey; the late 1960s when Afghanistan was still freely open to foreigners on the hippy trail to India. This was a time when people could still visit cities such as Herat and Kandahar. Anyone attempting this journey today would have to be suicidal. In this account, Levi looks for the traces left by the succeeding conquerors, traders, and pilgrims. For Levi, Afghanistan is not a Mountainous wilderness populated by fanatics, but a land crammed full of history During the journey they visit many important Greek, Persian, and Islamic sites. Perhaps the most poignant part of their trip is their viewing of the Buddha’s of Bamiyan, the great rock carved images of the Buddha blown up by the Taliban in 2001.

An author who gives such an alluring title to his book raises high expectations in his reader; and Peter Levi does not disappoint. This journey took place in 1969 and the Afghanistan he paints for us is long gone. But this book will endure as other great travel writing has endured. He has the brain of a scholar and the pen of a poet; the combination is magical. Quotation is impossible. Every page is crammed with brilliant and intense detail - historical background, flowers, birds, sunsets, people, landscape, rock formations, fruits, ruins - nothing escapes his notice and he recreates what was undoubtedly a life-enhancing and life-transforming experience for him in an enthralling narrative and exquisite prose that carry the reader along at a breathtaking pace. I have just finished this book and I am now going to read it again. And probably again and again.

Afghanistan as it was and never will be again. Lovely, evocative writing by a poet and classicist in the British tradition, based on a journey through Afghanistan with Bruce Chatwin in 1970.