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Welcome to the website of
Martin Buckley
Writer, Journalist, Film-maker, Educator
Martin Buckley has made documentaries for the BBC and others, written for most of the British broadsheet press and numerous magazines & web sites, and lectures on Journalism.
He is the author of three books, published by Penguin.
Martin's work as an author appears on this page.
Browse this website for information on Martin's writing,
film-making & lecturing,
or to book his creative and lecturing services.
Martin Buckley
Writer, Journalist, Film-maker, Educator
Martin Buckley has made documentaries for the BBC and others, written for most of the British broadsheet press and numerous magazines & web sites, and lectures on Journalism.
He is the author of three books, published by Penguin.
Martin's work as an author appears on this page.
Browse this website for information on Martin's writing,
film-making & lecturing,
or to book his creative and lecturing services.
An Indian Odyssey
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Myth, travelogue and holy writ, the Ramayana - the Journey of Rama - is India's best-loved book, an inspiration to schoolchildren, monks and movie-makers. It's one of the world's great epic tales, yet is largely unread in the Western world. The story of a man searching savage jungles for his kidnapped wife, the Ramayana combines Heart of Darkness with the Odyssey. And bizarrely, this violent and erotic account of a war between light and dark is at the heart of the fiercest controversy in contemporary Indian politics - one that has claimed over 10,000 lives.
When Martin Buckley first encountered the Ramayana twenty-five years ago, it became a guide to the complexities of Indian life. Here, he fulfils a dream - to retrace the route of Rama from his birthplace in north India to the climax of his confrontation with Evil, in Sri Lanka Buckley finds that the epic is as much a key to understanding India today as it was 3,000 years ago. Some historians have recast the fight between the hero and a race of dark-skinned demons as a colonial war, waged by Aryan invaders against indigenous Indians. Incredibly, it has been echoed in the brutal civil war
so recently fought in the jungles of Sri Lanka. At the same time, the God-King Rama inspires spiritual devotions of a kind almost unimaginable in the West.
An Indian Odyssey is the story of an adventurous and sometimes perilous passage through India by motorbike, microlight, bus and train. In the course of his own odyssey - physical and spiritual - Buckley witnesses death on the chaotic Great Trunk Road and passes through a war zone in Sri Lanka where bicycle bombs are the weapon of choice. A cast of mystics and Marxists, idealists and cynics - Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist - lays out the rich fabric of contemporary India and Sri Lanka, illuminated by the remarkable story of their past - and the quest of a man to rescue the woman he loves.
Click on links below to read Reviews:
Review: An Indian Odyssey by Martin Buckley | Books | The ...www.theguardian.com › Culture › Books Review: An Indian Odyssey by Martin Buckley.
A travelogue-cum-spiritual quest that features a cracking translation of The Ramayana, says Sarah March - http://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jun/28/an-indian-odyssey-martin-buckley
Review: An Indian Odyssey by Martin Buckley - Telegraphwww.telegraph.co.uk › Culture › Books › Non-Fiction Reviews02/08/2008 ·
Fascinated by the Ramayana, the classic Indian myth of Prince Rama and his travels, Buckley set out to follow in his footsteps.... He is incredibly well-informed. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/non_fictionreviews/3557630/Review-An-Indian-Odyssey-by-Martin-Buckley.html
When Martin Buckley first encountered the Ramayana twenty-five years ago, it became a guide to the complexities of Indian life. Here, he fulfils a dream - to retrace the route of Rama from his birthplace in north India to the climax of his confrontation with Evil, in Sri Lanka Buckley finds that the epic is as much a key to understanding India today as it was 3,000 years ago. Some historians have recast the fight between the hero and a race of dark-skinned demons as a colonial war, waged by Aryan invaders against indigenous Indians. Incredibly, it has been echoed in the brutal civil war
so recently fought in the jungles of Sri Lanka. At the same time, the God-King Rama inspires spiritual devotions of a kind almost unimaginable in the West.
An Indian Odyssey is the story of an adventurous and sometimes perilous passage through India by motorbike, microlight, bus and train. In the course of his own odyssey - physical and spiritual - Buckley witnesses death on the chaotic Great Trunk Road and passes through a war zone in Sri Lanka where bicycle bombs are the weapon of choice. A cast of mystics and Marxists, idealists and cynics - Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist - lays out the rich fabric of contemporary India and Sri Lanka, illuminated by the remarkable story of their past - and the quest of a man to rescue the woman he loves.
Click on links below to read Reviews:
Review: An Indian Odyssey by Martin Buckley | Books | The ...www.theguardian.com › Culture › Books Review: An Indian Odyssey by Martin Buckley.
A travelogue-cum-spiritual quest that features a cracking translation of The Ramayana, says Sarah March - http://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jun/28/an-indian-odyssey-martin-buckley
Review: An Indian Odyssey by Martin Buckley - Telegraphwww.telegraph.co.uk › Culture › Books › Non-Fiction Reviews02/08/2008 ·
Fascinated by the Ramayana, the classic Indian myth of Prince Rama and his travels, Buckley set out to follow in his footsteps.... He is incredibly well-informed. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/non_fictionreviews/3557630/Review-An-Indian-Odyssey-by-Martin-Buckley.html
ABSOLUTE ALTITUDE
![Picture](/uploads/3/0/0/5/3005634/published/3656619.jpg?1611944203)
Grains of Sand
"Buckley is a born storyteller...
"Read this book... "
-- The Observer
Driven by a desire to explore the most remote, barren yet romantic places on earth, Martin Buckley set off on a two-year journey through the world's deserts. In the Sahara he was threatened with murder. In the Gobi, he hijacked a cycle-rickshaw. Dehydrating in the Sonora, he hallucinated fruit cocktails. Encountering the desert at its most extreme, he learned how to find water - and how to spit tobacco into a camel's nostril.Images of the desert exert a powerful grip on the human imagination, from Lawrence of Arabia to Star Wars.
Deserts feel familiar, yet mysterious. The truth is that they are even stranger than we imagine. GRAINS OF SAND is a passionate, profound and frequently funny evocation of the world's deserts and the people who live in them; an extraordinary global adventure, and a personal voyage of discovery.
www.theguardian.com/books/2000/may/07/travel.travelbooks
www.irishtimes.com/news/just-deserts-1.254852
www.theguardian.com/travel/2000/mar/18/nevertravelwithout
"Buckley is a born storyteller...
"Read this book... "
-- The Observer
Driven by a desire to explore the most remote, barren yet romantic places on earth, Martin Buckley set off on a two-year journey through the world's deserts. In the Sahara he was threatened with murder. In the Gobi, he hijacked a cycle-rickshaw. Dehydrating in the Sonora, he hallucinated fruit cocktails. Encountering the desert at its most extreme, he learned how to find water - and how to spit tobacco into a camel's nostril.Images of the desert exert a powerful grip on the human imagination, from Lawrence of Arabia to Star Wars.
Deserts feel familiar, yet mysterious. The truth is that they are even stranger than we imagine. GRAINS OF SAND is a passionate, profound and frequently funny evocation of the world's deserts and the people who live in them; an extraordinary global adventure, and a personal voyage of discovery.
www.theguardian.com/books/2000/may/07/travel.travelbooks
www.irishtimes.com/news/just-deserts-1.254852
www.theguardian.com/travel/2000/mar/18/nevertravelwithout
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![Picture](/uploads/3/0/0/5/3005634/editor/desert-book.png?1611952865)
All text and images on this website are © Martin Buckley 2021 (unless otherwise stated)
All text and images on this website are © Martin Buckley 2021 (unless otherwise stated)