Freya Stark was fluent in several languages including Arabic and it was in the Arab world that she carried out some of her most important work, both by mapping unknown regions and working for British Intelligence. Born in Paris to bohemian parents, she spent much of her early life on the road between France, Italy and the UK.
Freya wrote her first book in 1933, followed by over twenty other works describing her experiences in countries as diverse as Nepal, Turkey and Canada. She often travelled alone and in dangerous terrains, surviving by developing her own individual set of rules.
Even in her seventies and eighties, Freya was on the move, braving the Euphrates on a raft, crossing Afghanistan in a jeep and trekking through Nepal on horseback.
