Bücher von Tahir Shah

For more than a century Henry Rider Haggard's novel King Solomon's Mines has inspired generations of young men to set forth in search of adventure. But long before Rider Haggard's classic, explorers, theologians and scientists scoured the known world for the source of Solomon's astonishing wealth. The Bible's wisest king built a temple at Jerusalem that was said to be more fabulous than any other landmark in the ancient world. Adorned with an abundance of gold, it was said to be gleaned from a mysterious land known as 'Ophir'. Taking his leads from a mixture of texts including the Septuagint, the earliest known form of the Bible, as well as using geological, geographical and folkloric sources, Tahir Shah sets out in search for Solomon's gold mines. For him the obvious place to look is Ethiopia, the ancient and enigmatic realm nestled in the horn of Africa. The ensuing journey takes Shah to a remote cliff-face monastery where the monks pull visitors up on a leather rope, to the ruined castles of Gondar, and to the fabulous rock-hewn churches at Lalibela. Then, in the south of the country, Shah discovers a massive illegal gold mine. Like something out of the Old Testament, there are thousands of men, women and children digging at the ground with their bare hands. In Search of King Solomon's Mines is regarded as a masterpiece of adventure, its twisting narrative itself touched with gold.

As a child living in the English countryside, a constant stream of people turned up at Tahir Shah's family home, all in search of his father - the writer and thinker Idries Shah. Among them were literary giants, including the classicist Robert Graves, Nobel laureate Doris Lessing, and the celebrated American novelist, J. D. Salinger.On one occasion when Salinger had just departed, Tahir asked why the author of The Catcher in the Rye wrote books at all. His father responded by saying: 'Salinger writes because if he stops he'll turn to stone.'Inspired by this quote, The Reason to Write is an account of Tahir's journey through the trials and tribulations of what it is to be an author. Describing the ins and outs of the literary world by charting his own experiences, Tahir calls into question the established norms of a publishing system most of us take for granted.A book of exceptional insight, The Reason to Write is packed with tips for budding authors, examples of what has worked and not worked, and an appreciation of how best to navigate the ever-turbulent waters of the literary trade.The overriding message of this often-hilarious literary cornucopia is simple: authors should write for themselves, and keep control - which means never selling out, no matter how appealing the lure.As a bestselling writer, whose forty or more books have been translated into dozens of languages the world over, Tahir Shah is regarded as one of the most original authors working today. The Reason to Write established him as a preeminent expert on the literary arts, as well as a forecaster of the fast-changing landscape of things to come.