YEARS AGO WHEN I was on The Observer our chief travel writer, Alexander Frater, although only occasionally present, was one of the paper’s legends, known to have been born in Vanuatu and to have been everywhere except outer space. He kept winning the big travel prizes, and was very friendly, and slightly hard to follow when he spoke about something because he always added an oblique detail so fascinating one forgot the original subject.

Literary Review

Jun 2004

Categories

Jonathan Mirsky

Sweet and Sour

Case Closed?

They Have Been at the Core of Great Events

Tutorials from a Transvestite

Dog Days

What’s Behind the Blue Door?

Communist Poster Boy

Invasive Procedures

Flow Country

A Right Way to Remember?

Girls Allowed

Dig for Victory

Crossing the Yalu

Dining at Lizard’s Thicket

Escape from Entebbe

Wild West

Sage Government

Mission Impossible

One Man and His Lama

A Sorority of Character

Stealing the Crown’s Jewel

Tale From Tiananmen

The Shanghai Beat

Rebel Province

Picture The Revolution