Richard Fidler: The Book of Roads & Kingdoms

Much-loved Conversations host and bestselling author Richard Fidler delves into The Book of Roads & Kingdoms, an account of medieval wanderers who travelled to the edges of the known world during Islam’s fabled Golden Age. He joins Caroline Baum to discuss the work hailed by The Sydney Morning Herald as “a bewitching tale consisting of stories within stories that radically tilts the Western reader’s perspective, revealing a world when all roads led to Baghdad.”

A Sydney Writers’ Festival Live & Local Livestream event.

ABOUT RICHARD FIDLER

Writer-broadcaster Richard Fidler is the author of several books that blend history with travel memoir and mythology: Ghost Empire, a history of Constantinople; Saga Land (with Kári Gíslason), a journey into the sagas of Iceland; and {The Golden Maze}, the story of the city of Prague. His most recent book, The Book of Roads & Kingdoms, is a collection of accounts written by merchants, diplomats and sailors who travelled from medieval Baghdad to the furthest reaches of the known world.

ABOUT CAROLINE BAUM

Caroline is the author of Only: A Singular Memoir about being an only child, published in 2017. Her life-writing has also appeared in several anthologies including My Mother, My Father: On Losing a Parent, and Rebellious Daughters. Life Sentences, her podcast about the practice of contemporary biography is available on all major platforms. Caroline is the winner of the 2015 Hazel Rowley Award, and her journalism has appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald, Griffith Review, and The Guardian. Caroline is the Ambassador for the Older Women’s Network in NSW.