ABSTRACT
While Chapter 1 established that the work of footstep travellers is often illuminating about the nature of “self” in the modern narrative, particularly as defined in relation to the protagonists of earlier desert texts, Chapter 2 turns instead, with the aid of postcolonial theory and anthropology, to those modern writers whose main aim is to reveal the “Other” in their Arabian desert encounters. In so doing, this chapter reveals how some modern writers are able to look beyond the stereotypes associated with the region to provide a more equitable account of Arab modernities. Works by Michael Asher focusing on encounters with the Bedouin, by Barbara Toy and Jan Morris on mechanised desert travel, and by Jonathan Raban and Tim Mackintosh-Smith on the urban experience are examined to show that although outmoded “East and West” kinds of binaries continue to exist in some desert literature, many modern writers are at pains to help their readers reach a deeper, postcolonial understanding of the particular regions through which they travel.
