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Christmas Eve in Uganda
Ryszard Kapuściński
‘In fact, from the moment I spotted Amin, I made a point of neither accelerating nor slowing down – no turning or stopping.’
Polisario
Jeremy Harding
‘The wall began to look impressive, but its lethargy, the lack of activity anywhere along it, was exasperating.’
The Road to Abyei
John Ryle
‘Bor is a long way from Khartoum – more than 700 miles. There were other hostile groups on the way and precious little food.’
The Bey
Bruce Chatwin
‘“Ha!” said the old gentleman. “I see you have The Eye. I too have The Eye. We shall be friends.”’
Konstantin Melnikov: Architect
Bruce Chatwin
‘The death-knell of visionary architecture in Russia had already been sounded when Lenin's commissioner for enlightenment, Anatoly Lunacharsky, announced, “The people also have a right to colonnades.”’
The Old Silk Route
Colin Thubron
‘If I had charted the most landlocked spot on earth, the arms of my compass would have intersected here, in China's far northwest.’
Siam
Norman Lewis
‘Little surprise was aroused when the model chosen for the new Hat Yai was Dodge City of the 1860s as revealed by the movies.’
Taiwan
Ian Buruma
‘It is extremely expensive and almost entirely symbolic, for the struggle itself is symbolic, waged mostly by the Political Warfare Department.’
Saigon Dreaming
Tela Zasloff
‘In the summer of 1964, when we arrived in Saigon, our house belonged to the United States military, whose cheerful Vietnamese employees moved us in.’
More Fat Girls in Des Moines
Bill Bryson
‘I didn't really expect my grandparents to be waiting for me at the gate, on account of them both having been dead for many years.’