Destination: Syria

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Travel Literature

As there are very few travelogues focused solely on Syria and Lebanon, you may find yourself selectively reading chapters from foreigner’s accounts of travels through the Middle East.

Paul Theroux wittily writes about his travels to Aleppo, Tartus, Lattakia, Krak des Chevaliers, Damascus and Maalula in The Pillars of Hercules (1996). From his one perceptive chapter on Syria you will learn more than you might from reading whole novels by other authors. Theroux’s serendipitous style of travelling is truly inspiring – you’ll glimpse a beautiful view or something interesting and find yourself jumping off buses and trains well before your intended destination!

Robert D Kaplan eruditely writes about his journeys in Syria and Lebanon in Eastward to Tartary (2001), cleverly weaving together historical and contemporary characters and stories as he did in Balkan Ghosts (1993).

A bittersweet, evocative and quirky account of travel in Syria can be found in Robert Tewdwr Moss’ Cleopatra’s Wedding Present (2003). Moss, who documents his affair with a Palestinian refugee, was murdered the day after he finished the book.

Janet Wallach’s Desert Queen (2001) is a highly entertaining account of the often sensuous adventures of feisty Victorian traveller (and friend to TE Lawrence), Gertrude Bell. You can read Bell’s own gossipy account of her carousing with Bedouin tribesmen in The Desert and the Sown, first published in 1907. If you find the colonial travellers from this period intriguing, you’ll enjoy Lawrence’s controversial classic Seven Pillars of Wisdom.

In Travels with a Tangerine (2001), Tim Mackintosh Smith engagingly documents his travels to Damascus, the Crusader and Assassin castles (for more information on the latter, see the boxed text The Assassins, p000), Hama and Aleppo as he retraces the journeys of the famous 14th-century Arab traveller, Ibn Battuta. William Dalrymple follows in the footsteps of another earlier traveller – a 6th-century monk – in From the Holy Mountain (1998). Dalrymple’s visits to Aleppo, Damascus, Beirut and Bcharré offer some keen observations.

For vivid local perspectives on the Syrian and Lebanese capitals, read Siham Tergeman’s Daughter of Damascus (1994) and Jean Said Makdisi’s Beirut Fragments (1990). Daughter of Damascus is a personal account of growing up in the atmospheric Souq Saroujah in the first half of the 20th century, while Beirut Fragments focuses on the difficult and dangerous day-to-day life during the civil war, as told by Edward W Said’s sister.

Travelling to Syria?
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