Ghost Train to the Eastern Star: On the Tracks of the Great Railway Bazaar
In Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, Paul Theroux retraces some of his steps from an earlier journey documented in his book The Great Railway Bazaar (1975). As he travels through more than a dozen countries in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, Theroux discovers what has changed among the familiar landscapes — and what has remained the same.
Quote:
"Travel can induce such a distinct and nameless feeling of strangeness and disconnection in me that I feel insubstantial, like a puff of smoke, merely a ghost, a creepy revenant from the underworld, unobserved and watchful among real people, wandering, listening while remaining unseen."
Author:
Paul Theroux is the author of more than three dozen books, including both fiction (The Mosquito Coast, My Secret History) and non-fiction (The Old Patagonian Express, The Pillars of Hercules, Dark Star Safari). He lives in London with his family.
Published: 2008
Length: 496 pages
Set in: Russia, Japan, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Burma, Sri Lanka, India, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Georgia, Turkey, Romania, Hungary, Austria