Series: Eland classics

Mary Montagu was one of the most extraordinary characters in the world. She was a self-educated intellectual, a free spirit, a radical, a feminist but also an entitled aristocrat and a society wit with powerful friends at court. In 1716, she travelled across Europe to take up residence in Istanbul as the wife of the British ambassador. Her letters remain...

In 1973, the Afghans still had a King who ruled from a palace in Kabul with his own resident court of musicians when Veronica set up home in Herat. This Afghan city sat close to the Persian frontier and was fully cognisant of its glorious history as the capital of a once vast Central Asian Empire. Veronica was not a...

First published in 1997, it would be hard to find a publisher today for a white, male expatriate writing about the realities of life in a Jamaican hamlet. To make matters worse, Guy Kennaway wrote One People in the local patois. But this comic novel, sparkling with irreverent wit, is cherished in Jamaica where it is recognised for its 'humour...