The Book Smugglers of Timbuktu: The Quest for this Storied City and the Race to Save Its Treasures
Charlie English
Two tales of a city: The historical race to reach one of the world’s most mythologized places, and the story of how a contemporary band of archivists and librarians, fighting to save its ancient manuscripts from destruction at the hands of al Qaeda, added another layer to the legend.To Westerners, the name ‘Timbuktu’ long conjured a tantalising paradise, an African El Dorado where even the slaves wore gold. Beginning in the late eighteenth century, a series of explorers gripped by the fever for discovery tried repeatedly to reach the fabled city. But one expedition after another went disastrously awry, succumbing to attack, climate, and disease.Timbuktu was rich in another way too. A medieval centre of learning, it was home to tens – according to some, hundreds – of thousands of ancient manuscripts, on subjects ranging from religion to poetry, law to history, pharmacology, and astronomy. When al-Qaeda-linked jihadists surged across Mali in 2012, threatening the existence of these precious documents, a remarkable thing happened: a team of librarians and archivists joined forces to spirit the manuscripts into hiding.Relying on extensive research and firsthand reporting, Charlie English expertly twines these two suspenseful strands into a fascinating account of one of the planet's extraordinary places, and the myths from which it has become inseparable.
Copyright (#u8bf51bb9-635c-5754-857a-7cc5d104796c)
William Collins
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
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This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2017
Copyright © 2017 by Charlie English
Maps by Meighan Cavanaugh
Frontispiece: Nineteenth-century drawing of Timbuktu, based on a description by the French explorer René Caillié
Charlie English asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780008126650
Ebook Edition © May 2018 ISBN: 9780008126643
Version: 2018-05-01
Dedication (#u8bf51bb9-635c-5754-857a-7cc5d104796c)
For Lucy
Contents
Cover (#ub7e46a2c-c708-5887-a7fe-b9a45b46de2f)
Title Page (#ub8e0c569-ab71-5b03-a0df-d5aa737e2994)
Copyright
Dedication
Maps (#u6ced69b0-29a4-59fd-a70d-bb4f5db22fbb)
Prologue: A Man of Enterprise and Genius
PART ONE: OCCUPATION
1. A Seeker of Manuscripts (#ua4a86f80-3ed3-567e-8ca7-8753cf35c274)
2. A Wide Extended Blank (#u28f6cc70-805a-5bf5-bc1a-45863cd18220)
3. Hell Is Not Far Away (#u146c2909-6012-510b-97a5-b8be56331aac)
4. The Fourth Traveller (#u8980d96c-7cfd-528c-840b-bed1564f5384)
5. Al-Qaeda to the Rescue (#u6b870d30-3c68-556b-af50-aea5a2a84d74)
6. It Shall Be Mine (#u095433ec-5776-5bae-8bc5-9875f7219875)
7. Ismael’s List (#u8ef3d719-c427-5749-96aa-3f804005b54f)
PART TWO: DESTRUCTION
8. The Armchair Explorer (#u3e9a0ddd-db7c-505f-80f3-27946dbe6f98)
9. A Headless Horseman (#udbb86a0d-d7f0-57dd-bc50-b8ee3bd45a3d)
10. The Pope of Timbuktu (#uc1d614ef-42c3-5bc9-9b84-d84c8847d6b9)
11. Secret Agents (#ued3388a1-bd92-52ee-8e3a-315ea77e617a)
PART THREE: LIBERATION
12. Lives of the Scholars (#u3f4c9245-71c4-5d0a-8f5b-192034e3877c)
13. The Terrible Twosome (#ua6ae4d9b-9d50-51f6-86fc-e1672e1a6098)
14. King Leopold’s Paperweight (#ue49fb6c3-8757-5df4-a69e-345624494b5a)
15. Auto-da-Fé (#u222135ff-30ef-55cb-a2a8-1970bc119fba)
16. Chronicle of the Researcher (#u7dff5e66-0a74-5aae-a7b6-e69f18a3b3d1)
17. An Indiana Jones Moment in Real Life! (#u90ba10de-8cf0-5aaf-82e8-d2960b67168f)
18. Manuscript Fever (#ua768e865-f470-52c6-b116-b53845377809)
19. The Myth Factory (#u15873f4e-2811-502b-a96a-85c7ce3d5051)
Epilogue (#u0bdc9d7e-f148-5520-96f6-f5edd44f9856)
Picture Section
Notes (#udf79bc67-ebec-5ee0-89a6-164fa7eaf86f)
Selected Bibliography (#ude651f98-1fd4-5875-9010-a30d478c09fe)
Index (#ueaabe3eb-e440-5cdb-8362-b013cd605941)
Acknowledgments (#ub2eeedcd-fcdf-5ae9-809c-b8da52b3d90b)
Photo Credits (#u4ce594ba-03e9-5699-9fe7-e1a00af8d4db)
About the Author (#ue21921cb-235d-5649-885d-897ee918332d)
About the Publisher (#u76b36fdb-bcf2-5c34-ad38-df755956d3a8)
Maps (#ulink_715366ae-c6ec-5879-b910-8e2d910f5abd)
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