Susan Brind Morrow tells of her travels to places where ancient words were born--from the sounds of birds, from papyrus swamps, from dust and decay, from the light of a desert dawn. Spanning a decade of journeys between the Nile Valley and the Red Sea, between Cairo and Khartoum; by foot, riverboat, and jeep; alone, or accompanied by native guides, Morrow's luminous memoir is about solitude, landscape, roots, and origins; about essential places where human comfort is stripped away.

Havi Hoffman