Books by Jason Elliot

'We could not, in that place, just lead peaceful and uncomplicated lives, ignoring the fact of our longing. To ignore it, to pretend, to divert ourselves with a thousand trivialities - this would be worse than death itself.'Unfolding before the reader like a richly-woven oriental tapestry, The Madhouse is a unique, luminous tale of spiritual adventure, studded with gems of psychological insight and timeless wisdom.An anonymous manuscript tells the story of a man - we never know his name - made captive in a mysterious house. Its inhabitants are strangely familiar, its limits unknown. Driven by a longing to escape and to find meaning in his surroundings, the protagonist's journey moves compellingly towards an uncertain but irresistible goal: freedom. But the challenge is greater than at first supposed, and he must first suffer the trials, forged in the crucible of self-discovery, of separation, failure and betrayal - as well as fathom the paradoxes of time, love and death.A sustained allegory of inner quest, delivered in a voice at times philosophical and introspective, at others irreverent and provocative, this enigmatic tale fearlessly explores the metaphysical conundrums of life - alongside the perennial challenges of self-discovery, purpose and meaning.Readers of Borges, Kafka, and Herman Hesse will recognise in The Madhouse a bold and powerful synthesis of intellectual and spiritual enquiry, fused in allegorical language at the highest level of didactic literary fiction.

SAS meets James Bond in this extraordinary thriller by an award-winning travel writer.

An Unexpected Light, Travels in Afghanistan was greeted on publication by universal critical acclaim and is now widely acknowledged as the most influential contemporary work of Afghanistan. Written on the eve of 9/11, at the height of Afghanistan's isolation from the world, Jason Elliot's uncannily prescient account of his winter journey through the country torn by civil war is as pertinent today as it was then. Winner of the Thomas Cook/Daily Telegraph Travel Book Award in the UK and a New York Times Bestseller in the USA, it recounts the author's daring and passionate investigation into an extraordinary culture, first as a clandestine guest of the mujaheddin during the Soviet occupation, and ten years later during the Taleban advance on the besieged capital, Kabul. This new edition of An Unexpected Light is illustrated with the author's photographs and celebrates a classic work of travel literature. 'Jason Elliot is that rare traveller who surrenders himself to people and places and this tale is a many-layered reconstruction of his experience . . . I am sure this book will soon be among the classics of travel' DORIS LESSING 'An Unexpected Light is often unexpectedly funny and constantly perceptive, but it is also profound' New York Times 'What raises the book to the level of a classic is its intensely personal meditation on the magic of unplanned adventure, of the pain and pleasure of pushing into the unknown. The whole book, like Elliot's travels themselves, operated on this heightened level' The Times