num_pages: 752
description: This text, ostensibly the autobiography of Portugese explorer Fernão Mendes Pinto, came second only to Marco Polo's work in exciting Europe's imagination of the Orient. Chronicling adventures from Ethiopia to Japan, Travels covers twenty years of Mendes Pinto's odyssey as a soldier, a merchant, a diplomat, a slave, a pirate, and a missionary, and continues to overwhelm questions about its source with the sheer enjoyment of its narrative."[T]here is plenty here for the modern reader. . . . The vivid descriptions of swashbuckling military campaigns and exotic locations make this a great adventure story. . . . Mendes Pinto may have been a sensitive eyewitness, or a great liar, or a brilliant satirist, but he was certainly more than a simple storyteller."—Stuart Schwartz, The New York Times
language: English
title: The Travels of Mendes Pinto
titlecomplete: The Travels of Mendes Pinto
genres: China, Classics, Portugal, History, Asia, Nonfiction, Travel, 17th Century, Adventure, Portuguese Literature
ratings_count: 324
awards: awardedAt: 662716800000
name: Prémio D. João de Castro da Comissão Nacional para as Comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses, awardedAt: 1388563200000
name: Premi de Traducció Vidal Alcover
category:  Gabriel de la S.T. Sampol
publisher: University of Chicago Press