Robert Hackford

At one level, Robert Hackford`s immensely readable novel is about the tough world of intercontinental truck drivers, treacherous mountain passes, desert storms and TIR truck stops in the Middle East, focussing on the `Kamyonistan` community near Damascus in Syria. At another level, it`s a tender, discreetly told story of two teenage boys, Ro and Nuri, one English, one Arab, who find themselves in a harsh moral environment tainted by fundamentalism. They look to each other for comfort, and discover firdaus - paradise. Few authors touch on such sensitive issues as these, and Kamyonistan is bound to appeal to a broad range of readers, especially youngsters. It is a feast for the casual reader, for the traveller and truck addict, and for the...

Дата выхода: январь 2008

`Kamyonistan is not just a place... It`s a magical oasis we`ve constructed in our minds.` Bingo is right. The truck stop near Damascus is an oasis - a paradise, even - currently recovering from the harsh reality of an Israeli missile attack. For the English teenager Ro and his Egyptian-born friend Nuri, it represents security, better employment prospects and a tolerance of their unusual lifestyle. The arrival of a majestic camel and her baby offspring presents a different kind of challenge. When unmarked containers also arrive at Kamyonistan in the depths of a severe winter, and Ro sees rifles being secretly offloaded by night, it`s Nuri`s cameleer skills that are needed - for gunrunning across the mountains into the hot spot next door:...

Дата выхода: январь 2008

Kamyonistan has finally arrived. The truck stop in the desert near Damascus has witnessed its first birth – a surprise to all concerned – and is therefore a community. It’s also ‘a place in our heads’ as one truck driver, Bingo, says, as well as being an oasis of rest and entertainment for travellers from all corners of the world… …and a target for Israeli missiles. Suddenly, Kamyonistan is threatened. The honest drivers move on and the gangs move in. A British Muslim stows away to commit an act of terrorism in Amsterdam. An English truck driver finds a very unpleasant piece of dead cargo in the back of his wagon. An imam preaches tolerance and becomes a marked man. Can Bingo and his friend Titania make sense of it all, and...

Дата выхода: январь 2008

As Ro and Nuri pursue their quest for an Islamic booklet that supports ijtihad, or a revision of strict Muslim laws and codes of conduct, we follow them to Cairo, Aswan, Aqaba, Petra, and finally back to Kamyonistan near Damascus. This is the truck stop community that is their true home - their jannat al-ardh or earthly paradise. But the relationship between Ro, the English teenager, and his young Arab friend, Nuri, is not unnoticed by a fundamentalist spy. Having shaken off the two-faced Omar, Ro comes face to face with twin tragedies, first when Kamyonistan is rocked by an earth tremor, and secondly when a thoroughbred white camel arrives, heralding a sadness that goes far deeper for Ro and his friends.

Дата выхода: январь 2009