The Nine Horizons

In 1987 Mike Robbins, a young journalist in London, felt restless and decided to travel. He never really stopped. In the quarter century that followed he lived and worked in countries as diverse as the world itself. The pieces in this book take the reader from rural Sudan to the headwaters of the Amazon, from Semana Santa in Quito to Buddhist temples in the Himalayas, across Bhutan on a motorbike, into the ancient souk of Aleppo, to the steppes of Central Asia and finally to New York.

In 1987 Mike Robbins, a young journalist in London, felt restless and decided to travel. He never really stopped. In the quarter century that followed he lived and worked in countries as diverse as the world itself. The pieces in this book take the reader from rural Sudan to the headwaters of the Amazon, from Semana Santa in Quito to Buddhist temples in the Himalayas, across Bhutan on a motorbike, into the ancient souk of Aleppo, to the steppes of Central Asia and finally to New York. Along the way there is Ethiopian gin, a sex tourist in Moscow, Kyrgyz women in cycling pants, a surreal toilet in Brussels, echoes of slavery in Brazil, and an encounter with Helen of Troy in Third Avenue. The Nine Horizons is an anarchic snapshot of a troubled but beautiful world in transition.

Mike Robbins was born in London in 1957. He is the author of four books: Even the Dead are Coming (2009), a memoir of life as a volunteer in Eastern Sudan; Crops and Carbon (2011), about agriculture and climate change; a novel, The Lost Baggage of Silvia Guzmán; and The Nine Horizons, a collection of travel pieces.