Sahara Unveiled: A Journey Across the Desert [Paperback]

William Langewiesche (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 24, 1997

The world's most vast and forbidding desert is revealed in all its cruelty and wonder in this masterpiece of contemporary travel writing by the author of Cutting for Sign. Determined to see the Sahara as its inhabitants do, Langewiesche crossed this enormous desert from Algiers to Dakar, braving its natural and human dangers and depending on its sparse sustenance and suspect charity. Photos.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Encounters, observations and revelations from a 1,200-mile trans-Saharan trek are poetically reported by William Langewiesche in Sahara Unveiled: A Journey Across the Desert. A correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, Langewiesche was undaunted by the physical hardships of the trip, instead focusing on the beleaguered towns and people that survive along the desert's fringes and in its oases. As he discusses subjects as various as adobe walls and the history of prehistoric Tassili cave painters, he introduces old friends and people met by chance. Despite poverty and changes brought on by bare-bones technology, he reveals why for more than 2,000 years the desert has been seen as a place of trial, cleansing and illumination. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Besides evoking the Sahara's power, majesty, emptiness, heat, beauty and terrors and describing its ecology and meteorology, Langewiesche (Cutting for Sign) adds details that may astonish armchair travelers who still think of the desert as populated by camels and Bedouins. Camels haven't disappeared, but paved roads through much of it support travel by taxis and buses, both of which Langewiesche used frequently. At oases, sophisticated cities offer tourists luxurious hostelries and shopping. Langewiesche, who does not explain how he got to North Africa, or why or when?although his official ID as a foreign correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly suggests possibilities?describes his treks from Algiers to the desert towns south and west of it, stopping at cafes with Parisian friends who trap two scorpions in a box to take home as souvenirs, conversing with locals, visiting a desert zoo with the unhappy wife of a Muslim friend and accepting the favors of a variety of wheelers and dealers, politicos and tribal characters whose portraits are illuminating. He is knowledgeable about the imprint of French colonialism on North African economy and politics, and about Muslim beliefs in practice. Throughout this vivid account, he scatters many charming native folktales. Photos.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 302 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; 1st Vint' Depart' Ed. July 1997. 1st Pr. edition (June 24, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679750061
• ISBN-13: 978-0679750062
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.8 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #97,412 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #91 in Books > Travel > Africa

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36 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Langewiesche's Sahara Is Arid Garden Of Riches, February 1, 2004

By 

Bill Slocum (Norwalk, CT USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sahara Unveiled: A Journey Across the Desert (Paperback)

Travel books can be a mixed bag, with the narrators themselves sometimes making for unpleasant company on the armchair journey. That is not a problem with "Sahara Unveiled," where author William Langewiesche submerges himself well beneath the thread of the story.

Langewiesche, a reporter for "Atlantic Monthly" best known today for his "American Ground" series of pieces on the aftermath of the World Trade Center's destruction, writes in a lean, spare, slightly alkaline style reminiscent of Hemingway that seems to suit his subject, the world's biggest and perhaps most ferocious desert, quite well. It puts one in mind of William Least Heat Moon's travel writing, notably "Blue Highways," with its cultural detours and picaresque, ever-changing cast of characters.

Langewiesche starts off by quickly dispelling any myths his readers might have about the subject of the Sahara: "Do not regret the passing of the camel and the caravan. The Sahara has changed, but it remains a desert without compromise, the world in its extreme." He goes on to demonstrate this by trekking through the desert's endless mass and then west to the Atlantic primarily by taxi, bus, and riverboat.

It's not clear to me why Langewiesche was doing this (Least Heat Moon had similarly opaque motives), and the locals have questions, too. During one layover in the Algerian town of M'Zab, what he calls "the diving board for the deep Sahara," there is the following exchange as Langewiesche looks for ground transport farther south:

"He said: 'Why don't you fly?'

'Because I want to see the desert up close.'

'Buy a postcard.'

'But I want to feel the desert.'

'It feels bad.'

Indeed it does. Sometimes it can even be fatal. Death, human and otherwise, is of no importance to the Sahara, devourer of whole towns and caravans. "The Sahara is not cruel, but it is indifferent," he writes. And it produces a sometimes indifferent people, hard, lean, and fatalistic.

People who attack Langewiesche for a lack of political correctness in depicting the Arabs, Berbers, Tauregs, Moors, and others he describes in these pages pay a glowing tribute without knowing it. Langewiesche is one tough writer, unsentimental, not macho but not running for office, either. When he has cause to describe the generosity and kindness of people he meets, he does so. When he runs into less decent folk, he doesn't mince words. He doesn't waste them, either, on emotional outbursts or self-righteousness. As I said at the beginning, he's one author who doesn't get in the way of what he's talking about.

His take on the Europeans who come to the Sahara are sharp and cutting. He notes meeting a miserable French couple collecting scorpions and tales of injured superiority in Algeria, a former French colony: "She was a Parisian, and too young to remember the old Algerian war. But she had picked up the old colonial habit of talking about the Algerians as if they were not present or didn't understand French. Similarly, she wore a short skirt and a sleeveless shirt, and through the thin fabric displayed her nipples in disregard of local sentiment. And now she sat drinking French wine. These were not acts of indifference, but aggression. And Algerians understood the difference."

The best thing about "Sahara Unveiled" is it never sits still for long. Langewiesche can spend a few pages talking about the fate of a misguided missionary in the 1800s, then bring things back to the present day with an analysis of Taureg separatist violence. He analyzes the different types of dunes formed by Saharan sand, how the desert resembles an ocean, and how it does not. He relates folk tales and the anatomy of a camel. Using plainspoken and approachable prose, he manages to take deep stock of a variety of subjects, make his point, and move on.

The last leg of the journey is a quick one, perhaps because Langewiesche was taken ill (from drinking the water, a classic tourist mistake). He doesn't wrap it up as well as he should have, but the rest of the book is too good to begrudge him anything for that. Complaining the author left you wanting more is not much of a complaint, is it?

You will enjoy this account of nature at its extreme, and the people who live in it. It is an armchair journey worth taking.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Living Desert, September 13, 2000

By 

Lucas M. Zomignani (Goiatuba, GO Brazil) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sahara Unveiled: A Journey Across the Desert (Paperback)

Have you ever wanted to escape from the daily routine of the world? Ever wished to travel to a remote destination with nothing but a backpack and na adventurous spirit to rely on? Is your answer is yes, then you can probably quench that craving - even if only vicariously - by reading William Langewiesche's `Sahara Unveiled'. What starts off as just another travel book quickly speeds up in the middle chapters to become a wonderful work of non-fiction, narrowly bordering on religion, history, philosophy, politics, and anthropology as the author paints a harrowingly realistic picture of his journey across the desert. If on the one hand the book lacks warmth (as ludicrous as that may sound it being a narrative on the Sahara), and the author's attitude reveals a tinge of cold impersonality, one must also admit that that very attitude allows the reader to see the adventure from a first-person perspective. The descriptions are colourful and the writer has what appears to be an innate talent for defining the characters, for their essences and spirits can be clearly distinguished throughout. The chapters follow Langewiesche's route from Algiers to Dakar, stopping at dozens of towns, villages, oases and settlements that dot the vast seas of gravel and sand. Definitely ranking among the best travel books ever written, `Sahara Unveiled - A Journey Across The Desert' is a worthwhile read, coming as something of a shock to all those who picture the Sahara as just one vast, lifeless expanse.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The desert: Its people and its soul., December 4, 1999

By 

A. Sood (NY, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sahara Unveiled: A Journey Across the Desert (Paperback)

At some point in this brilliant piece, the author states that writers write about the desert for the same reason that readers read about it: to fulfill their curiousity. The vast majority of us have neither the courage nor the time to travel through the Sahara and we should all thank Mr. Langewiesche for making this journey for us. And we should all complement him on just how he has shared this incredible experience. By weaving in African myths, Saharan individuals, details of science and his own musings, Mr. Langewiesche has created a masterpiece. If you have ever been interested in learning about the desert, you must read it to enjoy and to satisfy your curiousity. And if you have not, you should read it to expand your horizons.