The Marsh Arabs

1964

Brasch DS70.7 TC97

London: Longmans, Green and Co.

Wilfred Thesiger (1910-2003) was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and educated at Eton and Oxford. He spent much of his life living and travelling in Africa and the Middle East. In the 1950s, he spent eight years, on and off, with the Marsh Arabs, who lived an aquatic lifestyle in island villages between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in parts of Iraq, Kuwait, and Iran. Thesiger immersed himself. He travelled in his own canoe, learned their customs, and in his book, The Marsh Arabs, he ‘captured for posterity fast disappearing ways of life’. His visits coincided with the beginning of the systematic draining of the Marshes. Many inhabitants sought refuge in Iran. However, in 2016, UNESCO made the area a Heritage Site, which may in future facilitate the reestablishment of these traditional ways of life.