My favourite travelogue is The Places in Between. Rory Stewart, who went and walked across Afghanistan, wrote it a few years ago. It is just a really great, sensitive, and fascinating account of the country, and his experiences of being there as a traveller. He has a lot of sensitivity to the landscape—to the physical setting, to the shifting culture, and to the communities he is encountering. It is interesting for what it says about him and his odd status in Afghanistan as a British white guy, for his interactions with the people he meets along the way, and for this amazing landscape. There’s this detail I love: he has a dog for a while, that he walks with. Stewart’s narrative is political in the broadest possible sense, because he is extremely respectful of the complexity of Afghan history. He’s very thoughtful about the nuances of the society that he comes across, and the picture he paints isn’t at all black and white. I really enjoyed that about it.
Sarah Waters is a Man Booker Prize-nominated writer whose novels include Tipping the Velvet and Fingersmith.
(As told to Shreya Ila Anasuya)