5550
“…Different, elaborate, fascinating. Probably the best travel book published by a Spanish author this year in our country…”
“…Esteva’s book is a display of almost flawless and unpretentious writing that reveals a profound knowledge of the Arab world and its culture. ..”
Pilar Rubio. “Siete Leguas”. El Mundo
It pleases us to announce the publication of the second edition of this extraordinary travel book by a Spanish writer. Jordi Esteva, who as a child was fascinated by the adventures of Sinbad the Sailor, proves that we are completely misled in our belief that Arab people inhabit only deserts. He takes us on a voyage to the ports of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean to listen to the stories that the natives tell him about maritime routes as old as, and even older than, the Islam itself, which reveal an amazing knowledge of the art of navigation and the sailing of the seas.
Qué Leer
“…One evening in Wad Madani, Esteva was listening to the great singer Um Kulzum singing about the love of a young man who goes to the camp to visit his loved one only to discover that she has already left together with all her family. He is unable to follow her because a sand storm has erased the footprints. The only thing left is the burning remains of a night fire they had left behind. Esteva immediately identifies with that feeling of despair: “I was also looking for a world that had just disappeared and just like in the song I found only the remains”. If you haven’t read Los árabes del mar, the fascinating story of this search, you can count on it for this summer. You won’t regret it…”
Xavier Antich. La Vanguardia
“…Esteva’s book, a mixture of autobiography and voyage chronicle, starts off, paradoxically, in1977 in the marshes of Sudan, a spot far from the sea. In that existentialist and Conradian background, enjoying the company of bango –Sudanese marijuana- whisky, and hippopotamuses, looking for a white hunter cousin with a warthog tooth hanging around his neck, and getting into serious trouble, the author redeems himself by deciding to take up his old time vow to follow the route of the Arab seafarers. It is remembering these conversations with the Arabs of the sea that he thinks of a title for his book …”
“…Esteva’s recreation of those places that have vanished in time –like Qalhat, the most important port in the kingdom of Ormuz, of which Ibn Batuta said that if the world were a ring, Qalhat would be the its diamond– the almost elegiac tone in which this description is rendered, and the images he evokes, make the reading of these passages an unforgettable experience. Moreover, because the Esteva of this voyage, rather than being an aesthete or a travel writer, is a tough voyager who does not hesitate to visit the slums , somebody for whom comfort is the last of his worries, who forgets about timetables and values the simple things of everyday life and specially because Esteva’s voyage basically occurs place in the ports of friendship.
Jacinto Antón, El País
“Los árabes del mar is one of the very best travel books written recently. It is one of the kind that makes you want to go out there and follow the steps of the narrator. It is a book that fills you with hope because it is an example of a literary genre that changes with the times …”
“It is evident that Esteva is a careful observer and displays the utmost attention to detail. He weaves his descriptions with such rich and unusual language, which from being old fashioned, has a luminosity about it that transports us to those forgotten worlds bound to the earth, the sky and the sea, worlds that many of us long for even when we are already beginning to forget what they are called. ..”
Gabi Martínez. Culturas. La Vanguardia
“Esteva has reconstructed for Altair/Peninsula the fascinating stories of the Arabs of the sea, the inheritors of the legend of Sinbad, who sailed the seas creating that very old maritime route in the Indian Ocean. Esteva records the narration of those old sea captains that sailed a route that disappeared forty years ago, and who now live scattered in the phantom cities and dreamy ports of Yemen and Oman, Mombassa, Lamu or Zanzibar…”
“…Esteva has set upon himself the task of finding the remains of worlds that are vanishing, to listen to their elders and record their memories before it is too late: “I do not care if what they say is true or not, what matters to me is how they explain their myths and write history their own way…”
Josep Massot
La Vanguardia
5550
Moved by a childhood longing to find the Arab seafarers, those sailors incarnated by Sinbad, the writer and photographer Jordi Esteva, (Barcelona, 1951), travelled to the coast of Sudan. However, all he found there were a few remains of that dream world, the world of those courageous sailors that left the coast of Arabia in their dhows and sailed across the Indian Ocean dominating the commercial routes while experiencing a series of exciting adventures. Nevertheless, he did not give up his dream.
Years later he made another voyage to visit the vanishing ports that the Arabian seafarers founded in the Indian Ocean in the hope that he might learn more about them. He visited legendary places such as Zanzibar, Muscat, Socotra and the coast of the Zanj people, he spoke to old fishermen and made the most extravagant friends. The narration of his travels, that have a Monfreidian aura about them, conform this book which combines the nostalgic and the adventurous, probably the best of its genre ever written in Spanish.
Jacinto Antón
Cultural Supplement of “Babelia”, El País
Jordi Esteva
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