Down the Nile: Alone in a Fisherman's Skiff - Softcover
Synopsis
When Rosemary Mahoney, in 1998, took a solo trip down the Nile in a seven-foot rowboat, she discovered modern Egypt for herself. As a rower, she faced crocodiles and testy river currents; as a female, she confronted deeply-held beliefs about foreign women while cautiously remaining open to genuine friendship; and, as a traveler, she experienced events that ranged from the humorous to the hair-raising--including an encounter that began as one of the most frightening of her life and ended as an edifying and chastening lesson in human nature and cultural misunderstanding. Whether she's meeting Nubians and Egyptians, or finding connections to Westerners who traveled up the Nile in earlier times--Florence Nightingale and Gustave Flaubert among them--Mahoney's informed curiosity about the world never ceases to captivate the reader.
"A pilgrimage about pilgrims and holy places that is not only enlightening but also very funny." -Paul Theroux (on The Singular Pilgrim)
"Mahoney is a wonderfully effective catalytic agent: she goes to Ireland and just makes the country happen around her." -Jonathan Raban (on Whoredom in Kimmage)
"Mahoney, who has been rowing for 10 year, brilliantly juxtaposes an account of her own palm-blistering hours on the Nile....with the diary entries of two Victorian travelers-Gustave Flaubert and Florence Nightingale."
--Lisa Fugard, New York Times Book Review
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About the Author
Rosemary Mahoney is the author of The Early Arrival of Dreams, a New York Times Notable Book; Whoredom in Kimmage, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist; A Likely Story: One Summer with Lillian Hellman; The Singular Pilgrim: Travels on Sacred Ground; and Down the Nile: Alone in a Fisherman's Skiff, a New York Times Notable Book. She is the recipient of a Whiting Writer's Award.
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. This is travel writing at its most enjoyable: the reader is taken on a great trip with an erudite travel companion soaking up scads of history, culture and literary knowledge, along with the scenery. The genesis for the trip is simple: the author's love of rowing. Her plan, "to buy a small Egyptian rowboat and row myself along the 120-mile stretch of river between the cities of Aswan and Qena," is less so. Mahoney (The Singular Pilgrim; Whoredom in Kimmage) conveys readers along the longest river in the world, through narrative laced with insight, goodwill and sometimes sadness. Mahoney's writing style is conversational, her use of metaphor adept. She cleverly marshals the writings of numerous river travelers but focuses on "two troubled geniuses": Florence Nightingale and Gustave Flaubert. The device allows readers a backward glance at the Edwardian travel accoutrements of sumptuous riverside dinners, staggering supplies of alcohol and food, trunks of books and commodious accommodations. The physical environment is demanding. "When I removed my hat, the sun had made the top of my head sting... it was like having a freshly baked nail driven into one's skull." Yet her biggest obstacle isn't the climate but the slippery hurdles of culture and sex. Whether struggling to buy a boat, visiting historic Luxor or rowing, innocent encounters become sticky psychological and philosophical snares. Still, the ride is smooth, leaving the reader wishing for more nautical miles. (July 11)
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- PublisherBack Bay Books
- Publication date2008
- ISBN 10 0316019011
- ISBN 13 9780316019019
- BindingPaperback
- LanguageEnglish
- Number of pages273
- Rating
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