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The Book Smugglers of Timbuktu: The Quest for this Storied City and the Race to Save Its Treasures
Charlie English


Two tales of a city: The historical race to reach one of the world’s most mythologized places, and the story of how a contemporary band of archivists and librarians, fighting to save its ancient manuscripts from destruction at the hands of al Qaeda, added another layer to the legend.To Westerners, the name ‘Timbuktu’ long conjured a tantalising paradise, an African El Dorado where even the slaves wore gold. Beginning in the late eighteenth century, a series of explorers gripped by the fever for discovery tried repeatedly to reach the fabled city. But one expedition after another went disastrously awry, succumbing to attack, climate, and disease.Timbuktu was rich in another way too. A medieval centre of learning, it was home to tens – according to some, hundreds – of thousands of ancient manuscripts, on subjects ranging from religion to poetry, law to history, pharmacology, and astronomy. When al-Qaeda-linked jihadists surged across Mali in 2012, threatening the existence of these precious documents, a remarkable thing happened: a team of librarians and archivists joined forces to spirit the manuscripts into hiding.Relying on extensive research and firsthand reporting, Charlie English expertly twines these two suspenseful strands into a fascinating account of one of the planet's extraordinary places, and the myths from which it has become inseparable.





























Copyright (#u8bf51bb9-635c-5754-857a-7cc5d104796c)


William Collins

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.WilliamCollinsBooks.com (http://www.WilliamCollinsBooks.com)

This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2017

Copyright © 2017 by Charlie English

Maps by Meighan Cavanaugh

Frontispiece: Nineteenth-century drawing of Timbuktu, based on a description by the French explorer René Caillié

Charlie English asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

While the author has made every effort to provide accurate Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins

Source ISBN: 9780008126650

Ebook Edition © May 2018 ISBN: 9780008126643

Version: 2018-05-01




Dedication (#u8bf51bb9-635c-5754-857a-7cc5d104796c)


For Lucy


Contents

Cover (#ub7e46a2c-c708-5887-a7fe-b9a45b46de2f)

Title Page (#ub8e0c569-ab71-5b03-a0df-d5aa737e2994)

Copyright

Dedication

Maps (#u6ced69b0-29a4-59fd-a70d-bb4f5db22fbb)

Prologue: A Man of Enterprise and Genius

PART ONE: OCCUPATION

1. A Seeker of Manuscripts (#ua4a86f80-3ed3-567e-8ca7-8753cf35c274)

2. A Wide Extended Blank (#u28f6cc70-805a-5bf5-bc1a-45863cd18220)

3. Hell Is Not Far Away (#u146c2909-6012-510b-97a5-b8be56331aac)

4. The Fourth Traveller (#u8980d96c-7cfd-528c-840b-bed1564f5384)

5. Al-Qaeda to the Rescue (#u6b870d30-3c68-556b-af50-aea5a2a84d74)

6. It Shall Be Mine (#u095433ec-5776-5bae-8bc5-9875f7219875)

7. Ismael’s List (#u8ef3d719-c427-5749-96aa-3f804005b54f)

PART TWO: DESTRUCTION

8. The Armchair Explorer (#u3e9a0ddd-db7c-505f-80f3-27946dbe6f98)

9. A Headless Horseman (#udbb86a0d-d7f0-57dd-bc50-b8ee3bd45a3d)

10. The Pope of Timbuktu (#uc1d614ef-42c3-5bc9-9b84-d84c8847d6b9)

11. Secret Agents (#ued3388a1-bd92-52ee-8e3a-315ea77e617a)

PART THREE: LIBERATION

12. Lives of the Scholars (#u3f4c9245-71c4-5d0a-8f5b-192034e3877c)

13. The Terrible Twosome (#ua6ae4d9b-9d50-51f6-86fc-e1672e1a6098)

14. King Leopold’s Paperweight (#ue49fb6c3-8757-5df4-a69e-345624494b5a)

15. Auto-da-Fé (#u222135ff-30ef-55cb-a2a8-1970bc119fba)

16. Chronicle of the Researcher (#u7dff5e66-0a74-5aae-a7b6-e69f18a3b3d1)

17. An Indiana Jones Moment in Real Life! (#u90ba10de-8cf0-5aaf-82e8-d2960b67168f)

18. Manuscript Fever (#ua768e865-f470-52c6-b116-b53845377809)

19. The Myth Factory (#u15873f4e-2811-502b-a96a-85c7ce3d5051)

Epilogue (#u0bdc9d7e-f148-5520-96f6-f5edd44f9856)

Picture Section

Notes (#udf79bc67-ebec-5ee0-89a6-164fa7eaf86f)

Selected Bibliography (#ude651f98-1fd4-5875-9010-a30d478c09fe)

Index (#ueaabe3eb-e440-5cdb-8362-b013cd605941)

Acknowledgments (#ub2eeedcd-fcdf-5ae9-809c-b8da52b3d90b)

Photo Credits (#u4ce594ba-03e9-5699-9fe7-e1a00af8d4db)

About the Author (#ue21921cb-235d-5649-885d-897ee918332d)

About the Publisher (#u76b36fdb-bcf2-5c34-ad38-df755956d3a8)




Maps (#ulink_715366ae-c6ec-5879-b910-8e2d910f5abd)















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