Caravans

First published in 1963, James A. Michener's gripping chronicle of the social and political landscape of Afghanistan is more relevant now than ever. Combining fact with riveting adventure and intrigue, Michener follows a military man tasked, in the years after World War II, with a dangerous assignment: finding and returning a young American woman living in Afghanistan to her distraught family after she suddenly and mysteriously disappears. A timeless tale of love and emotional drama set against the backdrop of one of the most important countries in the world today, Caravans captures the tension of the postwar period, the sweep of Afghanistan's remarkable history, and the inescapable allure of the past.

Praise for Caravans

"Brilliant . . . an extraordinary novel . . . The old nomadic trails across the mountains spring into existence."--The New York Times

"Romantic and adventurous . . . Michener] has a wonderful empathy for the wild and free and an understanding of the reasons behind the kind of cruelty that goes with it."--Newsday

"Michener has done for Afghanistan what . . . his first book] did for the South Pacific."--The New York Herald Tribune


About the Author
James A. Michener was one of the world's most popular writers, the author of more than forty books of fiction and nonfiction, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Tales of the South Pacific, the bestselling novels The Source, Hawaii, Alaska, Chesapeake, Centennial, Texas, Caribbean, and Caravans, and the memoir The World Is My Home. Michener served on the advisory council to NASA and the International Broadcast Board, which oversees the Voice of America. Among dozens of awards and honors, he received America's highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, in 1977, and an award from the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities in 1983 for his commitment to art in America. Michener died in 1997 at the age of ninety.