This book took criminally long to write and many people suffered in its making. All those in Pakistan, particularly the Begum and her family, who bore the burden of hosting and ferrying about a farang, have my everlasting thanks. I hope you see in these pages my affection for you and your country. Thanks also to my former bosses at the Daily Telegraph and the Economist, who gave me the freedom to roam, and my Pakistani and Afghan colleagues – some of whom later paid for their work with their lives – who often guided me through dangerous areas.
Gauvin Bailey, Carl W. Ernst, Salman Rashid, Susan Stronge, Frances Pritchett, Francis Robinson, John Mock and Kimberley O’Neil, Alexander Evans, the late Adam Nayyar, experts all, gave me valuable guidance, which I may or not have taken.
Several friends read early drafts and endured much, none more so than Catherine Ann Heaney and Charles Cumming. Other victims include: Alice Albinia, Sarah Gabriel, Alan Philps, Sam Loewenberg, Chris Morgan-Jones, David Sharrock, Robbyn Swann and Tony Summers. I’m grateful to Angharad Kowal, whose encouragement propelled me to complete a first draft, and Marc Lavine of Agence France-Presse, who gave me leeway to get it finished.
Even though hellishly busy, James Astill executed a massively generous, detailed and astute eleventh-hour rescue operation that may have just saved this book’s skin; and Joshua Ireland used his wizardry as an editor to try to make it all of a piece. Simply, this book would not exist without the hard work and benevolence of Barnaby Rogerson and Rose Baring of Eland. Their passion for travel and books, and their warmth and unstuffiness made the enterprise a joy. My travels, indeed much of my life, would not have been possible were it not for the staff at the Adelaide and Meath Hospital and Beaumont Hospital in Dublin who have kept me on my feet and toes for nearly twenty years. Among others, I owe thanks to George Mellotte, Maura Looney, Helen McGovern, Donna Johnson and David Hickey.
Praise is due to my old neighbour and steadfast friend, John Ind, who during my periods of illness buoyed me with insults and flights of poetry, and Brian Kelliher and Liz Daly, who tried to make sure I didn’t lose the run of myself.
My family also put its shoulder to the book-wheel: brother Gus steered me away from some embarrassing follies; sister Gez urged me on, despite fearing for my sanity; Marina brightened our lives; and all my nieces provided great joy. My beloved and much-tested father, aided by generous and punctilious Juliet, stayed the course right from the book’s earliest, tattiest stages and midwifed it through till the end.
I owe an unrepayable debt to Laura, who knocked this book and me into shape, and made us both her own, giving the text a rigorous shake-up and urging me on whenever my spirits flagged. On a trip back to Pakistan in 2016, intrepid and boundlessly curious, she reminded me why I loved the country. It’s unfair that I should then have persuaded her to marry me. I can only offer her my dog-eared self.
The last of my thanks goes to: Chev, frequent companion on these sallies, who is missing a vital organ on my account, and without whom this book, and I, would have sunk long ago; Granny (Pam Stephenson, 16.12.1923–15.6.2017), the sine qua non of it all, who saw me through the lowest ebb of sickness; and my mother, who, although now dead for over a decade, is with me always.
Ireland, Budapest and Hong Kong
May, 2017