Enchanted Lands

Roland and Sabrina Michaud, now in their eighties, have spent most of their lives together exploring Africa and Asia. Their travels have taken them to far-flung places, including Yemen, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey. Throughout their journeys Roland and Sabrina photographed and wrote about what they saw. This breathtaking account of their travels features nearly 500 colour images that capture, with sensitivity, curiosity and delight, the people they met and the landscapes they traversed. Organised into sections that focus on particular regions, the book takes readers to the monasteries and villages of China, the tents of Mongolian nomads and the black rocks of northern Pakistan. Many of their images are indelible studies of faces: the weathered faces of Kazakhstani men, their heads wrapped in turbans; or the shy veiled face of an Iranian mother nursing her child atop a camel as she travels from summer pastures to the Persian Gulf. Throughout the book the Michauds' eloquent commentary gives context to these remarkable images and offers their uniquely humane perspective on what it means to encounter incredible beauty, harsh landscapes, and unfamiliar surroundings. Best of all, it describes the pleasures of meeting people whose joys, sorrows and struggles we all share.