Freya Madeline Stark

Freya Madeline Stark, 1923

Dame Freya Madeline Stark (born January 31, 1893 in Paris , † May 9, 1993 in Asolo , Italy ) was an English explorer and travel writer.

Freya Stark was born in Paris. Her father was a painter from Devon , England; her mother was Italian of German-Polish descent. For her ninth birthday, an aunt gave her the stories A Thousand and One Nights . She was fascinated by the oriental world. She later learned Arabic and Persian , studied history in London, and served as a nurse in Italy during World War I.

Freya Stark mainly traveled to the Middle East between 1927 and 1979 and wrote several books about her travels. Her first trip took her in 1927 for seven months from London to Lebanon , from where she continued to Damascus and lived in the former home of the English diplomat and writer James Elroy Flecker . Her trip to the area of ​​the Druze, which is subject to martial law, is particularly noteworthy .

In 1929 she returned to Damascus and traveled from there to Baghdad . In 1930 she traveled to Persia in the still unexplored valleys of the Assassins . About this trip she wrote the book The Valley of the Assassins . This travelogue suddenly established her reputation as a research traveler (the German translation, first published in 1949, has the title Im Tal der Mörder , which is not an exact translation of the original title).

Later trips took her to a. to Transjordan , Yemen (1934), Egypt and finally to the Himalayas at the age of 86 . For some time she worked for the British Ministry of Information , a propaganda agency during the Second World War.

In 1972 she was ennobled by Elizabeth II as Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire and has held the title of lady ever since . She spent the last years of her long life (she was one hundred) in Asolo, Italy.

Works (selection)

• The Valleys Of the Assassins, and Other Persian Travels. Century Travelers, Arrow Books, London (1991). ISBN 0-09-973890-2
  • In the Valley of the Murderers: A forbidden journey into mysterious Persia . Heyne Taschenbuch, Garching Hochbrück (1993). ISBN 3453065255
• Passes, gorges and ruins: the adventurous journey of a woman in the footsteps of Alexander the Great in Asia Minor . Weitbrecht, Stuttgart; Vienna (1993). ISBN 3522714105 . Title of the original English edition Alexander's Path ; Translated by Hermann Stiehl.
• The Southern Gates of Arabia . Century Hutchinson, London (1986). ISBN 0712600531 .
  • The southern gates of Arabia: an adventurous journey of a European on the trail of the Frankincense Route. Translated by Hans Reisiger, revised. by Nicola Volland. Stuttgart: Weitbrecht (1992). ISBN 3522609107 .
• A winter in Arabia . Overlook Press, Woodstock (1987). ISBN 0879512784 .
• Rivers of Time (illustrated book). William Blackwood & Son Ltd. , Edinburgh (1982). ISBN 0851581471 .
• Malise Ruthven (Ed.): Freya Stark in the Levant: Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Palestine . Reading: Garnet Publishing, 1994 ISBN 1-85964-003-6
• Malise Ruthven (Ed.): Freya Stark in Iraq and Kuwait . Reading: Garnet Publishing, 1994 ISBN 1-85964-004-4
• Malise Ruthven (Ed.): Freya Stark in Persia . Reading: Garnet Publishing, 1994 ISBN 1-85964-011-7

swell

• Freya Stark: Traveller's Prelude ( English ). John Murray, London 1950.
• Caroline Moorehead: Freya Stark ( English ). Penguin ISBN 0-14-008108-9 , Middlesex 1985.
• Molly Izzard: Freya Stark. A biography. Scepter Books, Hodder & Stoughton Paperbacks, London (1993). ISBN 0-340-59779-8
• Jane Fletcher Enjoy: Passionate Nomad: The Life of Freya Stark (New York: Random House, 2001).
• Peter H. Hansen: Stark, Dame Freya Madeline (1893? –1993) , Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Oxford University Press, 2004

Web links

• Literature by and about Freya Madeline Stark in the catalog of the German National Library
• Freya Madeline Stark. In: FemBio. Women's biography research (with references and citations).