Englishman Tim Mackintosh-Smith was studying Arabic at Oxford when he visited Yemen, a forgotten country at the heel of the Arabian peninsula, and became obsessed with the place and its language. He's lived there since 1982, and this book--marketed as travel writing but more a blend of personal memoir and national history--is the result. There are certainly travel episodes, such as a trip to the remote island of Susqatra where the Gulf of Aden meets the Indian Ocean. Yet Yemen is more the product of a man gone native than a visitor with an itinerary. Indeed, Mackintosh-Smith offers a forthright defense of the country's lotus-like drug culture, which centers on qat, a leaf that produces a narcotic effect when chewed. "We qat chewers, if we are to believe everything that is said about us, are at best profligates, at worst irretrievable sinners," he writes. Although international health officials have warned against the drug, Mackintosh-Smith assures us this is all "quasi-scientific poppycock." The leaf, he says, helps its users to "think, work, and study." Yemen is surely an exotic land, and one of its charms--fully revealed in Mackintosh-Smith's digressive prose--is the way it has remained quaintly Arabic and seemingly immune to the modern forces transforming its neighbors. Well-received upon its initial publication in the United Kingdom, Yemen may come to be recognized as a small classic. --John J. Miller


From Publishers Weekly
Against the advice of his Arabic teacher ("Why don't you go somewhere respectable?"), Mackintosh-Smith decided to go to Yemen in 1982 and has "been there ever since." As a result, this is no ordinary travelogue, but an impressionistic exploration of a non-Western land by an experienced observer. A latter-day Lawrence of Arabia without the military exploits, the author has taken up many of the customs of his adoptive land: he's become addicted to qat, a plant that is chewed, often in groups, for its calming effects. The book, a bestseller in Britain, takes the reader on Mackintosh-Smith's travels throughout this south Arabian land, introducing the reader to both wizened Yemenis and the perils of roughing it--even in the late 20th century--throughout a mainly unexplored land. Sleepless nights on rocky inclines mix with desert heat and scorpions on one trip through the countryside, while an odd visit to a Yemeni dancing club highlights his trip to the city of Aden. An engaging writer with a journalist's eye for detail, Mackintosh-Smith never loses his sense of humor: his description of his visit to an English class, where the teacher asks the students, "How many noses does Professor Tim have?" is sidesplitting. The book offers an opportunity for dedicated armchair travelers to delight in a land few Westerners will actually visit. One warning: the author intersperses some history and politics among his travels, but the lay reader is advised to keep a reference source handy. Etchings by Martin Yeoman. (Jan.) Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times Book Review, Jason Goodwin
Mackintosh-Smith seems incapable of writing a dull sentence, and in him the scholar, the linguist and the storyteller swap hats with marvelous speed.


From Booklist
Mackintosh-Smith's book is a strange hybrid. On one hand, it is a travelogue, filled with descriptions of magnificent landscapes, stunning cities, and personal stories of the author's experiences. It is also a history book, albeit not a chronological one because Mackintosh-Smith jumps from time period to time period as his travels bring him to places of historical significance. These parts together make Yemen a very unique book indeed. Mackintosh-Smith is a talented writer and observer, and he skillfully conveys his sense of wonder to the reader. He states in the preface that the book "treads the thin line between seriousness and frivolity," but there is nothing frivolous about his narrative, which thoroughly draws the reader into the world of Yemen. This book is an excellent introduction to an often overlooked country. Kristine Huntley


From Kirkus Reviews
A literate journey into exotic territory by a traveler with an unusual depth of knowledge. Yemen, whose Arabic name means the south, is a mystery even to its neighbors in the Arab world. Tribal, remote, and seemingly inhospitable, it seldom figures in the itineraries of even the most adventurous travelers. When Mackintosh-Smith, a student of Arabic at Oxford, announced to his tutor that he intended to live in Yemen because, he understood, its dialect was the closest living relative of classical Arabic, he was advised to go instead to the safer, and better known, confines of Cairo, Amman, or Tunis. He left in 1982 with the promise to return to his studies soon. Yemen, however, cast its spellor perhaps it was the qat, the mildly narcotic herbal stimulant whose consumption occupies him over much of his wandering. Mackintosh-Smith guides his readers through what he calls dictionary land, by which he means a land whose every expression can mean many thingswhere, for example, the word qarurah can mean either the apple of ones eye or urinal, depending on context and mood. He neither tries to make the exotic overly familiar nor the familiar overly exotic, in the way of so many British literary travelers to the legend-shrouded lands of Arabia Felix. His characters are not the mustachioed bandidos of old, but men who have worked oil rigs, fought civil wars, harvested frankincense and myrrh, and, in one instance, made a killing in Riyadh, running a juice bar. And the places he visits do not serve as mere backdrops for the authors ruminations on the ills of modern life; rather, they are celebrated and assessed for their specific qualities: hot, dusty, endlessly fascinating places with histories that cry out for attention. A vigorous, humorous debut that paints a delightful portrait of a distant land. -- Copyright ©2000, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Book Description
Yemen is arguably the most fascinating and least known country in the Arab world. Classical geography described it as a fabulous land where flying serpents guarded incense groves. Medieval Arab visitors told of disappearing islands and menstruating mountains. Our current ideas of this country at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula have been overrun by images of the desert, by oil, by the Gulf War-but there is another Arabia. Writing with an intimacy and a depth of knowledge gained through thirteen years among the Yemenis, Mackintosh-Smith is a traveling companion of the best sort-erudite, witty, and eccentric. Crossing mountain, desert, ocean, and three millennia of history, he reveals a land that, in the words of a contemporary poet, has become the dictionary of its people. In Yemen: The Unknown Arabia we witness the extraordinary in the ordinary. Yemen is a part of Arabia, but it is like no place on earth, and Yemen is a book in which every page is filled-like the land it describes-with the marvelous.


About the Author
Tim Mackintosh-Smith has lived in Yemen since 1982, earning the unofficial title "Shaykh of the Nazarenes." Steeped in the language and customs of his adopted land, he is both guest at the feast and fly on the wall. This, his first book, won the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Yemen is arguably the most fascinating and least known country in the Arab world. Classical geographers described it as a fabulous land where flying serpents guarded sacred incense groves. Medieval Arab visitors told of disappearing islands and menstruating mountains. Our current ideas of this country at the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula have been overrun by images of the desert, by oil, by the Gulf War. but as Tim Mackintosh-Smith reminds us in his brilliant book, there is another Arabia.

Writing with an intimacy and a depth of knowledge gained through thirteen years among the Yemenis. Mackintosh-Smith proves himself a traveling companion of the best sort -- erudite, witty, and eccentric. Crossing mountain, desert, ocean, and three millennia of history, he portrays a land that, in the words of a contemporary poet, has become the dictionary of its people. In Yemen: The Unknown Arabia, we witness the extraordinary in the ordinary: men who chew leaves and camels that live on fish; a city that seems to have been baked, not built, of iced gingerbread; not to speak of shepherdesses who tend their flocks in gold sequinned dresses. Yemen is a part of Arabia, but it is like no place else on earth.

Often calling up aspects of the best of Paul Theroux, Jonathan Raban, Gavin Young, and Pico Iyer, Tim Mackintosh-Smith stakes a large claim alongside them on the back of a very special Arabian Grand Tour. With thirty-two etchings by Martin Yeoman of life and landscapes, Yemen is a book in which every page is filled -- like the land it describes -- with the marvelous.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Against the advice of his Arabic teacher ("Why don't you go somewhere respectable?"), Mackintosh-Smith decided to go to Yemen in 1982 and has "been there ever since." As a result, this is no ordinary travelogue, but an impressionistic exploration of a non-Western land by an experienced observer. A latter-day Lawrence of Arabia without the military exploits, the author has taken up many of the customs of his adoptive land: he's become addicted to qat, a plant that is chewed, often in groups, for its calming effects. The book, a bestseller in Britain, takes the reader on Mackintosh-Smith's travels throughout this south Arabian land, introducing the reader to both wizened Yemenis and the perils of roughing it--even in the late 20th century--throughout a mainly unexplored land. Sleepless nights on rocky inclines mix with desert heat and scorpions on one trip through the countryside, while an odd visit to a Yemeni dancing club highlights his trip to the city of Aden. An engaging writer with a journalist's eye for detail, Mackintosh-Smith never loses his sense of humor: his description of his visit to an English class, where the teacher asks the students, "How many noses does Professor Tim have?" is sidesplitting. The book offers an opportunity for dedicated armchair travelers to delight in a land few Westerners will actually visit. One warning: the author intersperses some history and politics among his travels, but the lay reader is advised to keep a reference source handy. Etchings by Martin Yeoman. (Jan.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

New York Times Book Review