The Marsh Arabs

Wilfred Thesiger's classic account of the eight years he spent living with the tribespeople of the Marshes of Iraq. First published in 1964 to great acclaim, this book by one of the century's greatest explorers describes a way of life which lasted for thousands of years, but has now all but vanished. Travelling with his medicine boxes and his teams of canoemen around the junction between the Tigris and the Euphrates, Thesiger visited nearly every village in the Central Marshes and came to know intimately the people who inhabit this landscape of islands, lakes and waterways, living with them in their reed houses and sharing their unique way of life. He beautifully evokes the landscape and its teeming wildlife and vividly brings to life the many friends he made among the Marsh Arabs. His extraordinary photographs provide a stunning record of the last remnants of a people and their culture.