INTRODUCTION
On my way to Samarkand I have lived a life.
The word Samarkand has always evoked in me a longing to visit that exotic-sounding city. I know that the Mughal sultans who ruled India before the British came from around Samarkand, but apart from that I am ignorant of that city’s culture, customs and architecture. I could look it up on Google but that would spoil my eventual visit. I like to be surprised. I have been surprised and awed by many wonderful places by going there before finding out anything about them: Petra, Wadi Rum, Kyoto, Raratonga, the Australian Outback. One day I will go to Samarkand, before darkness overwhelms me.
At the time of writing I am seventy years of age, still happily married to my first real love, Annette. My two children, Richard and Chantelle, are in their forties and likewise still happily married to theirs. Five grandchildren are already overtaking us in the fast lane, four of them boys and one lone but bright and determined young lady. I trust them to take care of the world after I’m gone and I know they will make a good job of it. I can see it in their demeanour and in their eyes.
The following paragraph consists of lists. I make no apologies for that. Lists tell you a great deal in a short-hand way.
I have to date had published over eighty books – novels and collections of short stories – and over a 120 single short stories. My work has been translated into twenty-two different languages, from Korean to Indonesian to Hebrew. Among my many publishers have been Faber and Faber, Penguin, The Bodley Head, Random House, Harper Collins, Hodder Headline, Methuen, Little Brown and Gollancz. While writing works of fiction and poetry, and now non-fiction, I have lived for several years at a time in nine countries and travelled to sixty others, some of them more than once: Singapore a score of times, Australia six, USA five, Canada six, Malaysia twelve, India, the Polynesian Islands, Thailand, Maldives, Indonesia, New Zealand three, Caribbean ten times, European countries countless times. I am a scribbler and a traveller, I love backpacking around the globe and will do it until I am physically unable. Samarkand has been on my list since the age of twenty.