num_pages: 348
description: Jonathan Rabin was living in Earls Court when the Arabs arrived in Britain. With their robes, their beak masks and their apparently bottomless wealth, the Arab visitors made highly conspicuous next-door neighbours. The streets and squares around South Kensington and Earls Court rapidly turned into London's Arab Quarter. There were Arabic graffiti on the walls, Arab cinemas, Arab kebab houses, Arab groceries, Arab butchers. Yet the people themselves remained unknown, even unknowable. They were figures of myth and rumour, victims of jeering newspaper stories and cruel cartoons. Like most Londoners, Jonathan Raban could not speak their language, he knew next to nothing of their history, their religion, their social life. Puzzled, curious, and sharp-eyed, he set out to meet his new neighborsFrom his London flat, Raban began a long looping journey around the Arabian peninsula. His trip through Bahrain, Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Yemen, Egypt and Jordan took him deeply into a fascinating and much-misunderstood society.
language: English
title: Arabia Through the Looking Glass
titlecomplete: Arabia Through the Looking Glass
genres: Writing, British Literature, Memoir, Nonfiction, Travel
ratings_count: 224
publisher: William Collins Sons & Co Ltd