'A Journey Through Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan', the book was shortlisted for the Edward Stanford/Lonely Planet Debut Travel Writer of the Year in 2020. Erika Fatland takes us on a journey that is unknown even to the most seasoned globetrotter. With an acute journalistic eye and an openness towards people and landscapes, she observes how five former Soviet Republics, once the USSR's furthest border, became independent in 1991. How have these countries developed since then? In the Kyrgyzstani villages, Erika meets victims of the widely known tradition of bride snatching; she visits the huge and desolate Polygon in Kazakhstan where the Soviet Union tested explosions of nuclear bombs; she meets Chinese shrimp gatherers on the banks of the dried out Aral Sea, and she witnesses the fall of a dictator. She travels incognito through Turkmenistan, a country that is closed to journalists. She meets exhausted human rights activists in Kazakhstan, survivors from the massacre in Osh in 2010, German Mennonites who found paradise on the Kyrgyzstani plains 200 years ago. During her travels she observes how ancient customs clash with gas production, and she witnesses the underlying conflicts between ethnic Russians and the majority in a country that is slowly building its future in Nationalist colours. Amidst the treasures of Samarkand and the bleakness of Soviet architecture, Erika provides a rare and unforgettable travelogue. Published 2019, 480 pages in paperback which includes history but also social, economic, political and environmental facts. Armchair travel at its best. Eight pages of rather grainy photos.

Winner of the 2024 Somerset Maugham Award, in the words of The Times: 'An anecdote-stuffed tour of lost cities that ruled the ancient world, then collapsed.' Its name means 'centre of the world', and since the dawn of history the Mediterranean Sea has formed the shared horizon of innumerable cultures. Of the many cities that dot this ancient coastline, Tyre, Carthage, Syracuse, Ravenna and Antioch are among the oldest and most intriguing. All are beautifully situated, and for layers of history and cultural riches they are rivalled only by their sister cities of Rome, Istanbul and Jerusalem. Yet their fates have been remarkably different. Once major power centres, all five have declined into relative obscurity. Nevertheless, their entwined history takes in Alexander the Great, Nebuchadnezzar, Archimedes and the Roman, Byzantine, Arab and Norman conquests, and their greatness still lingers for those who seek it out. Combining on the ground research with spellbinding storytelling skills, here is a revelatory new story and a powerful reflection on the sometimes fleeting glory of empires. It takes in Hannibal to Lord Byron and Dante, and you will enjoy the story of the foundation of Antioch by Seleucus, one of Alexander's generals, who planned the city by positioning his war elephants around the edges and ordering a tower built where each elephant stood. 288 page paperback, photos and drawings and eight pages of colour plates.