In 1939 Swiss travel writer and journalist Ella K. Maillart set off on an epic journey from Geneva to Kabul with fellow writer Annemarie Schwarzenbach in a brand new Ford. As the first European women to travel alone on Afghanistan’s Northern Road, Maillart and Schwarzenbach had a rare glimpse of life in Iran and Afghanistan at a time when their borders were rarely crossed by Westerners. As the two flash across Europe and the Near East in a streak of élan and daring, Maillart writes of comical mishaps, breathtaking landscapes, vitriolic religious clashes, and the ingenuity with which the women navigated what was often a dangerous journey. In beautiful, clear-eyed prose, The Cruel Way shows Maillart’s great ability to explore and experience other cultures in writing both lyrical and deeply empathetic. While the core of the book is the journey itself and their interactions with people oppressed by political conflict and poverty, towards the end of the trip the women’s increasingly troubled relationship takes center stage. By then the glamorous, androgynous Schwarzenbach, whose own account of the trip can be found in All the Roads Are Open, is fighting a losing battle with her own drug addiction, and Maillart’s frustrated attempts to cure her show the profound depth of their relationship. Complete with thirteen of Maillart’s own photographs from the journey, The Cruel Way is a classic of travel writing, and its protagonists are as gripping and fearless as any in literature.

The Cruel Way: Switzerland to Afghanistan in a Ford, 1939

Biographies & Memoirs

Maillart, Ella K.

Historical

University of Chicago Press

The author recounts her journey, accompained by her friend Christina, through the Middle East and Afghanistan during the months before World War II while Christina was fighting a losing battle against drug addiction

The Cruel Way (Virago/Beacon Travelers)

Travel

Asia

Beacon Pr

A classic account of a trip through China during the golden age of travel In 1935 Ella Maillart contemplated one of the most arduous journeys in the world: the "impossible journey" from Peking, then a part of Japanese-occupied China, through the distant province of Sinkiang (present day Tukestan), to Kashmir. Enlisting with newswriter Peter Fleming (with the caveat that his company remain tolerable), Maillart undertook a journey considered almost beyond imagination for any European and doubly so for a woman. The trip promised hardships such as typhus and bandits, as well as the countless hazards surrounding the civil war between Chinese communists and Chiang Kai-shek's nationalists. Setting out with pockets full of Mexican money (the currency used in China at the time), Maillart encountered a way of life now lost, but one that then had gone unchanged for centuries. Maillart describes it all with the sharp eye and unvarnished prose of a veteran reporter-the missionaries and rogues, parents binding daughters' feet with rags, the impatient Fleming lighting fires under stubborn camels. It's a hard road, not that Maillart cares. At all times she is a witty, always-enchanted guide-except when it comes to bureaucrats. Forbidden Journey ranks among other travel narratives like Fleming's News from Tartary, (based on the same journey) and Robert Byron's The Road to Oxiana. But it is also a portrait of a fascinating woman, one of many women from the pre-WWII era who ignored convention and traveled in hidden lands. It remains a vivid account of its time and a classic of travel literature.

Forbidden Journey: From Peking to Kashmir

Marlboro Press/Northwestern University Press

The Cruel Way

Virago Modern Classics / Virago Press Ltd

Forbidden Journey

Forbidden Journey is the awe-inspiring story of Ella Maillart and Peter Fleming's trip from Peking in China to Srinagar in India, crossing hostile deserts and high Himalayan passes this travel book is full of accounts of the people who inhabited this wild and vast land, living in a way that had not changed in a thousand years. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Hesperides Press are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

History

Hesperides Pr

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Hesperides Press are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Read Books

INTRODUCED BY FIONA MOZLEY, Booker-shortlisted author of Elmet 
WITH EXCERPTS FROM ALL THE ROADS ARE OPEN BY ANNEMARIE SCHWARZENBACH\n'We were both travellers - she always running away from an emotional crisis (not seeing that she was already wishing for the next), I always seeking far afield the secret of harmonious living, or filling up time by courting risk, caught by the clean sharp "taste" it gives to life.'\nIn 1939, adventurer and writer Ella Maillart set off on an epic drive from Geneva to Kabul, accompanied by journalist and photographer Annemarie Schwarzenbach, who later became an antifascist and lesbian icon.\nThe two women travelled partly to escape the coming war in Europe, embarking on a daring, and often dangerous, journey through regions where European women were a rarity. But Schwarzenbach was also fighting a losing battle with morphine addiction, and the women's close but often troubled relationship takes centre stage in the narrative as the journey progresses through Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan.\nEncountering breathtaking landscapes, ancient ruins and nomadic peoples, The Cruel Way is a gripping, lyrical and deeply empathetic portrait of places, people and friendship.\nBrought together for the first time with excerpts from All the Roads are Open, Annemarie Schwarzenbach's parallel account of the journey.

The Cruel Way: A John Murray Journey (Overcoming Books)

John Murray

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Maillart, Ella K.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Maillart, Ella K.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Maillart, Ella K.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Cruel Way: Switzerland to Afghanistan in a Ford, 1939

The Cruel Way (Virago/Beacon Travelers)

Forbidden Journey: From Peking to Kashmir

The Cruel Way

Forbidden Journey

Forbidden Journey

The Cruel Way: A John Murray Journey (Overcoming Books)