INCLUDED IN THE BEST OF GRANTA SERIES: From the best-selling author of The Glass Palace and Sea of Poppies, an extraordinary work of non-fiction that combines ancient history with a modern-day travelogue, now presented with an introduction from the author.

In an Antique Land is a subversive history in the guise of a traveller's tale. When the author stumbles across a slave narrative in the margins of an ancient text, his curiosity is piqued. What follows is a ten year search, which brings author and slave together across 800 hundred years of colonial history. Bursting with anecdote and exuberant detail, it offers a magical, intimate biography of the private life of a country, Egypt, from the Crusades to Operation Desert Storm.

"Ghosh's book is extraordinary; a travel book that reaches back into the twelth century as it touches on the dilemmas of our own time." - Sunday Times

"Ghosh is an engagingly humble and receptive traveller... a refreshing reversal of the usual power relationship between the observing (European) travel writer and his indigenous subjects." - Guardian

"A rich and satisfying journey" - The Times

"This captivating, extraordinary story offers the general reader a vision of a rapidly disappearing world told with such grace, humility and insight that its appeal is universal" - Bookmunch