Thubron, Colin 1939– (Colin Gerald Dryden Thubron)

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Thubron, Colin 1939–(Colin Gerald Dryden Thubron)

PERSONAL:

Surname is pronounced Thoo-bron; born June 14, 1939, in London, England; son of Gerald Ernest (a brigadier in the British Army) and Evelyn Thubron. Education: Attended Eton College, 1953-57.

ADDRESSES:

Home—London, England.

CAREER:

Writer. Hutchinson & Co. Ltd., London, England, editorial assistant, 1959-62; British Broadcasting Corporation Television (BBC-TV), London, freelance filmmaker in Turkey, Morocco, and Japan, 1963 and 1965; Macmillan Co., New York, NY, production editor, 1964-65.

MEMBER:

Royal Society of Literature (vice president; fellow), Royal Geographical Society (vice president; fellow), Royal Asiatic Society (fellow).

AWARDS, HONORS:

PEN Silver Pen Award, 1985, for A Cruel Madness; Thomas Cook Travel Award and Hawthornden Prize, both 1988, both for Behind the Wall: A Journey through China; Mungo Park Medal, Royal Scottish Geographical Society, 2000; Lawrence of Arabia Medal, Royal Society for Asian Affairs, 2001; Commander of the Order of the British Empire, 2007.

WRITINGS:

NONFICTION; TRAVEL

Mirror to Damascus, Heinemann (London, England), 1967, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1968.

The Hills of Adonis: A Quest in Lebanon, Heinemann (London, England), 1968, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1969, Penguin (New York, NY), 1987, published as The Hills of Adonis: A Journey in Lebanon, Atlantic Monthly (New York, NY), 1990.

Journey into Cyprus, Heinemann (London, England), 1975, Penguin (New York, NY), 1986.

Among the Russians, Heinemann (London, England), 1983, published as Where Nights Are Longest: Travels by Car through Western Russia, Random House (New York, NY), 1984.

Behind the Wall: A Journey through China, Heinemann (London, England), 1987, Atlantic Monthly (New York, NY), 1988.

The Silk Road: Beyond the Celestial Kingdom, photographs by Carlos Navajas, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1989.

The Lost Heart of Asia, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1994.

In Siberia, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1999.

Shadow of the Silk Road, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2007.

NOVELS

The God in the Mountain, Norton (New York, NY), 1977.

Emperor, Heinemann (London, England), 1978, Penguin (New York, NY), 1991.

A Cruel Madness, Heinemann (London, England), 1984, Atlantic Monthly (New York, NY), 1985.

Falling, Heinemann (London, England), 1989, Atlantic Monthly (New York, NY), 1991.

Turning Back the Sun, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1991.

Distance, Heinemann (London, England), 1996.

To The Last City, Chatto & Windus (London, England), 2002.

OTHER

Jerusalem, photographs by Alistair Duncan, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1969.

(With the editors of Time-Life Books) Jerusalem, photographs by Jay Maisel, Time-Life (Amsterdam, The Netherlands), 1976.

(With the editors of Time-Life Books) Istanbul, Time-Life (Amsterdam, The Netherlands), 1978.

(With the editors of Time-Life Books) The Venetians, Time-Life (Alexandria, VA), 1980.

(With the editors of Time-Life Books) The Ancient Mariners, Time-Life, 1981.

The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, photographs by Clive Boursnell, Hamish Hamilton (London, England), 1982.

Has also scripted and filmed three documentary motion pictures on Turkey, Morocco, and Japan for television in the United States and Britain. Contributor to periodicals, including the London Times, Times Literary Supplement, and Spectator.

SIDELIGHTS:

"In his native England … [Colin Thubron] is recognized as one of the best literary traveling companions a reader can find," wrote Gayle Feldman in Publishers Weekly. "In both traveling and writing Thubron eschews the easy and exotic in favor of more difficult terrain…. [Thubron says,] ‘If you don't go to extreme places, you haven't done justice to the country. And as long as you're getting good copy everything's fine, even if bad things are happening,’" related Feldman, who reported that each of Thubron's travel books "takes three years of his life; a year or so of intensive language learning and research; four or five months in the target country; a year or so of fourteen-hour writing days."

Though often more recognized for his travelogues, Thubron has also published works of fiction. Feldman reported: "As a teen, Thubron recalls, ‘I imagined being a writer meant being a novelist.’ Now he professes ‘two different identities, coming from two different parts of myself.’ The fiction Thubron describes as ‘rather severely constructed…. ‘The novels are autobiographical in feeling—but not in fact,’ he hastens to add. ‘They arise from areas of emotional experience that are personal to me, and to some extent they're reactions against the travel books.’"

As Thubron once told CA: "Motivation is hard. At first I wrote travel books out of a romantic love for Asia, and novels to discharge myself of personal unease. Now I'm less sure. In travel, I've become gripped by the harsh strangeness of other cultures, and try to understand and humanize them in my books. In fiction I've stayed obsessed by extreme states. The chief influences on my travel writing have been Freya Stark and Patrick Leigh Fermor; on my fiction, none that I know. I write always in solitude, in the Welsh hills, with no telephone, just pen and paper."

A veteran world traveler, Thubron has written of his voyages in a series of books that are often considered by critics to be superior to the average travelogue. The typical Thubron book is a blend of history, description, and personal observation. In a Times Literary Supplement review of Journey into Cyprus, David Hunt observed that "the book is mainly about people," adding that it "is full of the most fascinating conversations."

Even though Journey into Cyprus focuses on "personalities and on village life," Hunt concluded that "it will also serve very well as a guide-book. The principal antiquities are poetically but accurately described, and history is so subtly interwoven into the narrative that by the end the reader has learnt painlessly all he needs to know of it." A Times Literary Supplement reviewer presented a similar assessment of Mirror to Damascus: "[Thubron's] narrative [exhibits] one great quality often missing from modern books of travel: its continual reference to the reality of another society and its actual people. His hosts and their relatives emerge as individuals, not as stereotypes." The critic concluded that "all this provides a pungent counterpoint of personal involvement and adventure to a solid account of the city's present flavour and past development, and the way Mr. Thubron has woven these elements together is a lesson for anyone who tries to combine entertainment with instruction."

"Thubron's … book, Among the Russians [published in the United States as Where Nights Are Longest: Travels by Car through Western Russia], can only serve to enhance his reputation," commented Fitzroy Maclean in the Spectator. "I enjoyed every page of it. It is well observed, well written and, unlike many books about Russia, gives proof of an unusual and penetrating insight into the character of the country and people." The book "is compiled from the notebooks of [Thubron's] extraordinary 10,000 mile journey across the Soviet Union in an old Morris Marina," described New Statesman contributor Olga Semenova, "from Leningrad and the Baltic, to Moscow and central Russia, the Ukraine and Kiev, the Caucasus and Armenia. The result is a beautiful and poetic work, which captures much of the spirit of Russia." The critic noted that while "Thubron conveys the feel of places and their past with wonderful intensity," he also portrays "the ugliness and emptiness of modern Russian life, with its tawdry tower blocks, interminable queues and tension, radiating outwards from the Kremlin."

Although the former Soviet Union is a subject that has been studied and analyzed many times before, Nigel Ryan believed that "new" information is not the author's purpose. Writing in the Times Literary Supplement, Ryan suggested that "with [Thubron] one experiences the bewildering and disorientating indifference to human life on a horrifying scale, and of sudden extravagant gusts of personal warmth, generosity and desire to confide; of a deep national melancholia at odds with a fierce patriotism. If we have heard most of it before," stated the critic, "we have seldom heard it so elegantly or powerfully put." Another difference, maintained Gail Pool in the Christian Science Monitor, is that "to a large degree, Thubron's journey through Russia is an exploration of attitudes, the Soviets' and his own…. If he is looking at everything, he is also looking for something, always moving beyond description to penetrate the texture of Russian life and compare it with his own world."

While some critics praised this personal angle in Thubron's work, Washington Post Book World contributor Joel Conarroe faulted the author for bringing a biased attitude to his work: "Thubron is mesmerized by rampant alcoholism, by bribery, and by ‘universal political hypocrisy.’ About these and other matters he tends invariably to confuse first impressions with wisdom. … The author is himself quite willing to draw conclusions from skimpy evidence." Los Angeles Times writer Richard Eder similarly believed that Thubron has not brought enough diverse elements to his account; he specifically cited as a "disabling defect … that Thubron rarely is good at describing and conveying the particular quality of the people he meets. They blur into each other, and their conversations, whether official, dissident or simply private, have a uniformity rarely lightened by wit or individuality."

Other critics, however, praised the author for an honest, self-cognizant approach. Douglas Hill, for example, claimed in the Toronto Globe and Mail that "what wins a reader over is Thubron's palpable honesty…. He gives the impression of complete candor, especially about himself, his enthusiasms, surprises and frustrations." The critic also observed that the author "makes quick but profound friendships; the connections he forges with the most unlikely people are explored sensitively, and they are often quite moving." New York Times Book Review contributor S. Frederick Starr echoed this opinion, writing that "the appeal of Mr. Thubron's account is deepened by his keen self-awareness, which pervades his narrative like an inner dialogue." The critic elaborated that Thubron "reports with surprise how he gradually ceased to be disappointed by the shortcomings he perceived in Soviet life and began to feel comforted by them. Then he stopped himself, realizing he had become like the Soviet visitor to the West who is at first disgusted and then smugly relieved by the flaws he observes around him." Starr also noted that Thubron, whom he called "a subtle and humane writer," is able to "capture the fleeting words and gestures that define a culture."

"Thubron is a limpid writer who has all the sharpness of eye … and can also present his version of Russia with a particular sweet-sour flavor," remarked Rosemary Dinnage in the New York Review of Books, adding that Thubron "has a novelistic gift for dialogue and settings." Citing Thubron's "fine writing," Ryan concluded that "the extraordinary dimensions [of the Soviet people] come through in Among the Russians. It is one of the best—and best written—travel books of recent years."

Thubron embarked on a similar voyage to prepare for Behind the Wall: A Journey through China, an account of which Times Literary Supplement contributor Jonathan Mirsky claimed "many China specialists who disdain ‘I saw China’ books will wish they had written … [for it] contains remarkable insights into the country." After learning enough Mandarin Chinese to be able to travel without a guide, Thubron toured the country by fourth-class train, staying off the beaten tourist track and meeting many Chinese. "The result," wrote Robin Hanbury-Tenison in Spectator, "is a rare first-hand account of a country seen through the eyes of one who has experienced what he describes and who is in a position to understand what he sees." The critic also commented that all the discomforts Thubron endured have produced "rich encounters, the special stuff of this author's writing. The world seems to be full of extraordinary people with amazing tales to tell, if a writer but puts himself in a position, however uncomfortable, to hear them."

Because he was a lone British visitor, Thubron found himself approached by many Chinese, who found him a curiosity. As Patrick Taylor-Martin reported in the Listener: "As an outsider, [Thubron] receives confidences from the Chinese, and throws much light on the mystery which still surrounds this nation of a billion uncomprehended people. Talking to him, people confess their sorrow at having no children, their longing to go to America to study medieval European art, [and] their hatred of communism," among other topics.

It is this personal aspect of Behind the Wall that impresses many critics. While Hanbury-Tenison observed that "the countryside through which [the author] travels for lonely months, the satanic industrial cities, the deserted but reviving temples he visits are vividly described," he maintained that "they come alive through the characters [Thubron] contrives to meet." "The distinction of his book is in the way, with conviction and elegance and humour, he describes through chance conversations, bits of history and visions of understanding the country's total being, its China-ness," claimed a reviewer for the Observer.

"A travel book, to quote his own essay again, is one civilisation reporting on another: which is what this one does marvelously," noted Mirsky. And as with his other travelogues, Thubron brings a novelist's eye to his writing: "Thubron, as readers of his earlier books, especially the excellent Among the Russians, already know, is a wonderfully perceptive writer." Taylor-Martin similarly stated that the author's "style is impeccable. The book is full of beautifully composed scenes, orchestrated as if for a novel, and exquisite passages of description…. It should be read for the intelligence and poetic insight which went into its making." Calling Behind the Wall "an even better book than Among the Russians," London Times contributor Victoria Glendinning noted that Thubron's "characteristic lyricism is in this book a controlled calligraphy of ideas and images, its richness cut by splashes of monosyllables…. At the end I turned to look—again, as I thought—at the pictures. There are none, except in the mind," added the critic. "Writing as vivid as this needs no illustrations."

Having been praised for the intricate, lyrical descriptions in his travel books, it is not surprising that Thubron has turned his hand to fiction as well. Although his first two novels were not widely noticed, A Cruel Madness, his third, "sees Thubron in full possession of considerable talents as a novelist," claimed Times Literary Supplement contributor Jayne Pilling. Pilling added that "the book is a quietly extraordinary tour de force." The novel begins as Daniel, a prep-school teacher who volunteers weekends at a local mental hospital, believes he sees on the grounds of the asylum a woman with whom he once had a brief but disastrous affair. As he painfully realizes she is a patient there, Daniel recalls his original passion for her, including passages from her point of view. As the novel progresses, however, the reader becomes aware that Daniel is untrustworthy as a narrator, and that his visions and recollections may be delusions.

Although many books have been written about the illusory nature of human perception, Los Angeles Times Book Review contributor Sharon Dirlam believed that Thubron's book "isn't just another novel about madness and despair." Calling A Cruel Madness "spellbinding," the critic described the novel as "a gripping tale of passion, however misspent, and the failure of an entire set of characters to come to grips with life seems not as distant from ‘normal’ as one might think, but simply a look deeper into the mind than most of us dare to probe." Pilling also averred that "what is so impressive about A Cruel Madness is the way it transcends the conventional ‘novelized’ case history." The critic elaborated: "Thubron's descriptions of the hospital and its inmates are vividly convincing—fearfully so in their sad banality. The defences of a character traumatized by loss and separation—the madman's traditional cunning in weaving compulsive fictions—are appropriated by the novelist to impressive effect."

While Washington Post Book World contributor Stephen Koch also found A Cruel Madness "an intriguing and sometimes rather moving novel about insanity and love, illusion and reality," he faulted the author for the structure of the novel. In particular, the critic disliked what he termed "the absurdly simple device of omitting major pieces of information from an otherwise perfectly ordinary story…. This is what happens in A Cruel Madness, and I for one find it a cheap trick, an effort to make a story more portentous, merely because it is more perplexing." Other critics, however, found Thubron's use of Daniel's ambiguous narration very effective and well written. John Wheatcroft, for example, stated in the New York Times Book Review that "to experience this montage through Daniel's eyes and to hear through his ears echoes that are not perfectly congruent with what they supposedly repeat compels us to try to discover what actually has happened and what really is happening." "As we do so," continued the critic, "all the apparently solid ground on which the narrative has built begins to shift, to reveal gaps and inconsistencies."

"In such of his nonfiction as Among the Russians," observed Francis King in the Spectator, "Mr. Thubron gives the impression of being the most rational and well-balanced of people. It is therefore all the more remarkable that he should have been able to enter so convincingly into a mind so disturbed. With a terrifying vividness, Mr. Thubron creates a phantasmagoric world in which … the demarcation between reality and delusion becomes harder to perceive." In its persuasive use of narrative, A Cruel Madness "brings to mind other novels set in the microcosmic world of a hospital," asserted Wheatcroft, including "Thomas Mann's MagicMountain, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's Cancer Ward, Ken Kesey's One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest…. Among such distinguished company, Mr. Thubron's novel holds its own," concluded the critic. And a New Yorker reviewer claimed that Thubron's novel is "a study in madness so compelling that it is hard to believe we are not experiencing it at first hand," adding that A Cruel Madness is a "remarkable achievement."

Thubron's fifth novel, Turning Back the Sun, has been widely received as continuing on the path he had set for himself in his poetic travelogues and novels. Set in an unnamed country several critics likened to Australia with shades of South Africa or Argentina, the book centers on the conflict between white colonists and darker-skinned aborigines in a frontier desert town in the 1930s. A thousand miles away is the country's capital, the cosmopolitan center where the protagonist, Rayner, was raised until he was nineteen, when a car crash killed his mother and subsequently brought an end to his ambitions for an easy life as a doctor to the city's wealthy denizens. Banished to the outback by the government for failing his exams, Rayner longs for the city and feels like an outsider among the townspeople. His nostalgia for an idealized past makes him spiritually akin to the aborigines, whose religion casts them as exiles from a paradise that existed before the white colonists came.

A lone remnant of Rayner's life in the city is Ivar, a schoolmate who polices the frontier town for the paramilitary government. Closer to Rayner's sensibilities is a local strip-tease dancer whose unwillingness to pander to her customers infuriates them and intrigues Rayner. A murder and the outbreak of a mysterious disease that afflicts the white population with a rash that turns their skin brown causes a breakdown in the uneasy truce between the whites and the aborigines and sets the stage for the author's ruminations on colonialism and race. "If this sounds heavy going, in fact it is the opposite," remarked David Sacks in the New York Times Book Review; "the novel is crisply written and most enjoyable—as far as it goes."

Other critical reactions to Turning Back the Sun have been mixed. Thubron is accused of "flat predictability" in his characterization by Jennifer Howard in the Washington Post. Howard added that "as an allegory of the perniciousness of colonialism, though, Turning Back the Sun is beautifully thought out … and lyrically delivered." Not surprisingly, given the stature of the author's travel writings, "The book's strongest suit is its remarkable setting," according to Sacks, who added a paean to "Thubron's lucid, confident prose." Indeed, as in reviews of his travel writings, critics concur in their praise of the author's prose style, which adds a lyrical touch to what is otherwise an "existential allegory," according to Carolyn See in the Los Angeles Times.

Thubron returned to travel writing with the 1994 publication of The Lost Heart of Asia, a record of his trip through the former outposts of the Soviet Union in Central Asia, which when liberated from communist rule in 1991 became Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. Armed with a rucksack and a knowledge of the Russian language that had helped him in his trek across the Soviet Union for his much-admired travelogue Among the Russians, Thubron traveled alone through a region that few Westerners have seen, and placed him among people who had rarely if ever encountered a Westerner before. "He was tolerated by everyone and confided in by many," remarked Dervla Murphy in her review in the Spectator. Indeed, the author's word-portraits of the people he met were often considered highly poetic: "These faces are not only intriguingly agile," wrote Scott Malcomson in the Times Literary Supplement, "they are, for Thubron, astoundingly expressive…. We learn much about Central Asians from such eloquent faces."

While Malcomson condemned Thubron for failing to learn any of the Turkic languages native to Central Asia, relying instead on his knowledge of Russian, the language of the region's latest colonizers, others noted the sensitivity the writer brought to his subject, augmented greatly by his intimacy with the history of Central Asia as well as his travels in the Islamic Middle East and North Africa. And, as in his novels and his earlier travelogues, Thubron's prose is singled out for special attention: "The Lost Heart of Asia is not a book to be read quickly," asserted Murphy. "On almost every page gleam burnished paragraphs, prose only in their form, in their sensibility pure poetry—and yet, in the precision of each detail, as exact as a photograph."

In Siberia, published in 1999, is Thubron's "powerful, final volume of his trilogy on the Asian continent," according to Mark Rotella in Library Journal. As New York Times Book Review contributor Ken Kalfus stated: "His first journey, made in European Russia in the early 1980's and recorded in Where Nights Are Longest, had been dominated by his latent fear of the police state; in the early 90's he traveled to the newly independent countries of central Asia, producing The Lost Heart of Asia. During that time he giddily and compulsively gazed northward, at maps of Siberia: ‘I was subverted by the sudden falling open of a vast area of the forbidden world,’ he tells us here." "No single book can capture the enormity or the ‘otherness’ of Siberia, but this one comes close," lauded Frank Caso, who praised Thubron's prose in Booklist, describing it as "alternately exuberant, poetic, and mournful."

With In Siberia, applauded a critic in the Dallas Morning News, Thubron portrays "the unique sense of faith that defines Russia." The "well-researched, moving account" gives readers a "[deep], meditated exploration of Siberian life," stated Rotella. A Time International reviewer declared the "finely crafted account of a 25,000-km journey through the region in 1997" an unwavering success: "Thubron's lasting achievement is to convey [Siberia's] epic scale and yet to do so in a way that brings alive the smallest detail…. [By] reporting what he saw and heard in writing of supreme talent and clarity, Thubron has created that most precious artistic blend—a memorable work of scholarship, beauty and enduring value." According to a Publishers Weekly critic, the author/adventurer has the rare ability to convey his "experience[s] … magically" as well as present them alongside "a significant knowledge of the land's history, geology and wildlife."

"Thubron," commended Michael Upchurch in the Seattle Times, "explores both Russian time and Russian spaces with an analytic vigor matched by a canny instinct for the telling anecdote…. [His] way with language would be the envy of any novelist." In addition, observed Upchurch, "his itinerary is well-chosen." "The resulting book is sobering, informative and deeply moving as it portrays a collapsing society that no one, seemingly, knows how to fix." The reviewer concluded: "When future historians start looking for the human factor in the demise of Soviet Communism, they'll rely on Thubron as one of their primary sources." "In Siberia places the region in its historical context, but Thubron's history is never didactic or potted. Above all," asserted Kalfus, "Thubron is never a travel bore. With minimal complaint about traveling inconveniences, he keeps his focus on Siberia."

In 2007, eight years after In Siberia, was published, Thubron's ninth travel book, Shadow of the Silk Road, was released. In the book, Thubron relates his experiences from his epic eight-month, seven thousand-mile journey over the Silk Road, which is a network of trade routes in Central Asia dating back to 1500 B.C. over which many Chinese inventions—such as gunpowder, the crossbow, and the mechanical clock—made their way west. "The ancient world's greatest trade route is a weighty subject, and Colin Thubron, the hardest-working travel writer around, certainly puts his back into it," remarked critic Stephen Bleach in his review of the book for the London Times. "With its elegiac tone, Shadow of the Silk Road is moving in a way that's rare in travel literature, sidestepping nostalgia even as it notes its pull. Thubron goes to places most other sojourners can't—because they're not so much geographic locations as states of mind, formed from the lifelong accretion of intriguing facts, mistaken hopes, mysteries. Here, on civilization's oldest and longest road, which isn't quite a road, he has found his way into that kingdom and brought it into focus for us," observed New York Times Book Review contributor Lorraine Adams. According to the Observer reviewer Ian Thomson "Thubron's trademark literary prose, meticulousness and reserve are all on display" in Shadow of the Silk Road. New Statesman critic Tarquin Hall praised the book as well, saying that "it almost goes without saying that Shadow of the Silk Road is an exquisitely written book. Colin Thubron is a grand master of the travel genre, and his prose is unfailingly poetic and evocative." He later added that "the history he skillfully weaves through his narrative testifies to the vastness of human potential and the inestimable power of new ideas." Spectator critic Robert Macfarlane was also impressed with Thubron's efforts: "Thubron is a very hardy traveller, and a very fine writer. A tonally wobbly first few pages steady into a book of exceptional erudition, adventure and elegance, filled with fine instants."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

America, April 1, 1989, review of Behind the Wall: A Journey through China, p. 300.

American Spectator, January, 1989, review of Behind the Wall, p. 44.

Antioch Review, spring, 1986, review of A Cruel Madness, p. 252.

Booklist, September 15, 1988, review of Behind the Wall, p. 115; May 1, 1990, review of The Silk Road: Beyond the Celestial Kingdom, p. 1682; June 1, 1992, review of Turning Back the Sun; p. 1748; October 15, 1994, review of The Lost Heart of Asia, p. 396; January 1, 2000, Frank Caso, review of In Siberia, p. 871.

Books, April, 1987, review of Journey into Cyprus, p. 13; September, 1987, review of Behind the Wall, p. 8; January, 1988, review of Behind the Wall, p. 10; September, 1988, review of Behind the Wall, p. 12; August, 1989, review of Falling, p. 17; November, 1994, review of The Lost Heart of Asia, p. 13.

Book World, July 8, 2007, Jonathan Yardley, review of Shadow of the Silk Road, p. 15.

British Book News, August, 1987, review of Behind the Wall, p. 518.

Christian Science Monitor, September 8, 1987, Gail Pool, review of Where Nights Are Longest: Travels by Car through Western Russia.

Contemporary Review, May, 1990, Betty Abel, review of Falling, p. 274; February, 1992, Betty Abel, review of Turning Back the Sun, p. 101; June, 1995, review of The Lost Heart of Asia, p. 334.

Dallas Morning News, May 21, 2000, review of In Siberia.

Economist, July 23, 1988 review of Behind the Wall, p. 77; September 30, 2006, "Long and Winding Road; Travel Writing," p. 93.

Far Eastern Economic Review, May 25, 1995, review of The Lost Heart of Asia, p. 44.

Geographical, October, 1999, Nick Smith, review of Mirror to Damascus, p. 98; December, 2006, John Ure, review of Shadow of the Silk Road, p. 90; May, 2007, "Writer on the Road: One of the True Elder Statesmen of Travel Writing, Colin Thubron Muses on His Latest Book, Shadow of the Silk Road, the Dangers of Vodka and Why You're Never Alone When You're on the Road," p. 64; September, 2007, review of Mirror to Damascus, p. 92.

Globe and Mail (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), September 7, 1985, Douglas Hill, review of Where Nights Are Longest.

Guardian Weekly, December 29, 1991, review of Turning Back the Sun, p. 21.

Journal of Asian Studies, May, 1989, review of Behind the Wall, p. 377.

Kirkus Reviews, July 15, 1985, review of A Cruel Madness, p. 672; July 15, 1988, review of Behind the Wall, p. 1048; May 15, 2007, review of Shadow of the Silk Road.

Law Institute Journal, November, 1996, Vikki Hutton, review of Jerusalem, p. 85.

Library Journal, October 15, 1988, review of Behind the Wall, p. 90; December, 1990, Jessica Grim, review of Falling, p. 166; June 15, 1992, review of Turning Back the Sun, p. 104; September 15, 1994, review of The Lost Heart of Asia, p. 85; February 1, 2000, Mark Rotella, review of In Siberia, p. 108; April 1, 2007, "Kingdom of Ten Thousand Things: An Impossible Journey from Kabul to Chiapas," p. 106.

Listener, September 22, 1977, review of The God in the Mountain, p. 382; September 24, 1987, Patrick Taylor-Martin, review of Behind the Wall, p. 22.

London Review of Books, October 1, 1987, review of Behind the Wall, p. 21; September 28, 1989, review of Falling, p. 18.

Los Angeles Times, April 4, 1984, Richard Eder, review of Where Nights Are Longest, p. 10; July 2, 1992, Carolyn See, review of Turning Back the Sun, p. E6.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, October 6, 1985, Sharon Dirlam, review of A Cruel Madness.

National Post, July 28, 2007, Sara Wheeler, review of Shadow of the Silk Road, p. 12.

New Statesman, October 21, 1983, Olga Semenova, review of Among the Russians, p. 23; September 25, 2006, Tarquin Hall, "Caravan Holiday," p. 78.

New Yorker, October 7, 1985, review of A Cruel Madness.

New York Review of Books, June 13, 1985, Rosemary Dinnage, review of Where Nights Are Longest, p. 29; December 20, 2007, review of Shadow of the Silk Road, p. 18.

New York Times Book Review, May 18, 1969, review of The Hills of Adonis: A Quest in Lebanon, p. 20; December 7, 1969, review of Jerusalem, p. 48; July 15, 1984, S. Frederick Starr, review of Where Nights Are Longest, p. 24; November 10, 1985, John Wheatcroft, review of A Cruel Madness, p. 16; October 11, 1987, review of Where Nights Are Longest, p. 66; November 27, 1988, review of Behind the Wall, p. 10; August 2, 1992, review of Turning Back the Sun, p. 6; November 13, 1994, review of Turning Back the Sun, p. 72; December 4, 1994, review of Turning Back the Sun, p. 89; February 6, 2000, Ken Kalfus, "Absolut Zero;" July 15, 2007, Lorraine Adams, "The Way West," p. 1.

Observer, September 27, 1987, review of Behind the Wall, p. 26; January 15, 1989, review of Behind the Wall, p. 49; July 16, 1989, review of Behind the Wall, p. 42; September 10, 1989, review of Falling, p. 51; September 8, 1991, review of Turning Back the Sun, p. 57; September 17, 2006, Ian Thomson, review of Shadow of the Silk Road.

Psychology Today, May, 1986, review of A Cruel Madness, p. 72.

Publishers Weekly, August 12, 1988, review of Behind the Wall, p. 432; July 28, 1989, review of Behind the Wall, p. 216; December 7, 1990, Sybil Steinberg, review of Falling, p. 70; April 27, 1992, review of Turning Back the Sun, p. 248; August 22, 1994, review of The Lost Heart of Asia, p. 49; September 19, 1994, review of Turning Back the Sun, p. 66; December 13, 1999, review of In Siberia, p. 74; February 28, 2000, Gayle Feldman, "The Art of Traveling Well," p. 54.

Saturday Night, April, 1989, review of Behind the Wall, p. 62.

Seattle Times, February 6, 2000, Michael Upchurch, "Thubron Gives Well-traveled Look at Russia."

Smithsonian, October, 1989, review of Behind the Wall, p. 223.

Spectator, July 7, 1984, Fitzroy Maclean, review of Among the Russians; September 1, 1984, Francis King, review of A Cruel Madness; September 19, 1987, Robin Hanbury-Tenison, review of Behind the Wall; September 24, 1994, Dervla Murphy, review of The Lost Heart of Asia, p. 44; September 21, 1996, David Montrose, review of Distance, p. 54; July 13, 2002, "Haunted by the Incas," p. 39; September 2, 2006, Robert Macfarlane, "A Long Hike from China."

Time International, December 20, 1999, "Perpetual Prisoners: A New Book Journeys to the Frozen Heart of Russia to Find Siberia a Wasteland of Lost Souls," p. 64.

Times (London, England), September 17, 1987, Victoria Glendinning, review of Behind the Wall; October 7, 2007, Stephen Bleach, review of Shadow of the Silk Road.

Times Educational Supplement, August 14, 1987, review of Journey into Cyprus, p. 18; December 25, 1987, review of Behind the Wall, p. 11; December 25, 1992, review of Behind the Wall, p. 21; April 14, 1995, review of The Lost Heart of Asia, p. 32; July 14, 1995, review of The Lost Heart of Asia, p. 15.

Times Literary Supplement, December 21, 1967, review of Mirror to Damascus; June 6, 1975, David Hunt, review of Journey into Cyprus; June 22, 1984, Nigel Ryan, review of Among the Russians; September 7, 1984, Jayne Pilling, review of A Cruel Madness; September 11, 1987, Jonathan Mirsky, review of Behind the Wall; September 8, 1989, Peter Reading, review of Falling, p. 968; September 30, 1994, Scott Malcomson, review of The Lost Heart of Asia, p. 26; September 20, 1996, review of Distance, p. 23; July 5, 2002, "Journey's End," p. 21; November 17, 2006, "Worms for the Soup," p. 9.

Washington Post, August 4, 1992, Jennifer Howard, review of Turning Back the Sun, p. E5.

Washington Post Book World, June 17, 1984, Joel Conarroe, review of Among the Russians; November 17, 1985, Stephen Koch, review of A Cruel Madness.