Caravans, a Novel by Michener, James A - 1963

New York: Random House, 1963. Book. Very Good. Hardcover. BOMC edition. [v], 341pp, endpaper map, Note to the Reader. 8vo/22cm. Decorated black cloth gilt, shelf wear only, in slightly chipped dj protected with several closed tears), otherwise internally fine. VG/Fair A novel with the central theme of a search for a missing American girl married to an Afghan with a great deal about the Kochi nomads, also called Powindahs. Possibly partly based on or influenced by the disappearance in north-west Afghanistan in 1956 of Peter Winant, son of an American diplomat, and his Swedish fiance. Short review laid in by Gilbert Highet, Professor of Classics and Latin, Columbia University reprined from the BOMC News.The author, James Michener (1907-1997) spent a fair amount of time in Afghanistan and the North-West Frontier of Pakistan in the mid-fifties. In his 5-page Note to the Readers on pages 337 to 341, he discusses his connection and fascination with Afghanistan. Though listed in both the standard Wilber bibliography of 1968 (#720) and its successor by Jamal Hanifi in 1982 (#1432), the evaluation is negative, one reader with some contact with the Powindahs in this same period found the book a good read, if a bit over romantic. And for those aficionadoes of this famed global writer, the autobiographical Note is alone worth reading especially for his last sentence that of all the countries he had visited, Afghanistan would be the one he "would most prefer to visit again." See also Schuyler Jones 904..