The Chains of Heaven: An Ethiopian Romance

By Philip Marsden

Book Overview

Philip Marsden returns to the remote, fiercely beautiful landscape that has exercised a powerful mythic appeal over him since his first encounter with it over twenty years ago.

'Ethiopia bred in me the conviction that if there is a wider purpose to our life, it is to understand the world, to seek out its diversity, to celebrate its heroes and its wonders - in short, to witness it.'

When Philip Marsden first went to Ethiopia in 1982, it changed the direction of his life. What he saw of its stunning antiquity, its raw Christianity, its extremes of brutality and grace prompted his curiosity, and made him a writer.

But Ethiopia at that time was torn apart by civil war. The north, the ancient heartland of the country, was closed off. Twenty years later, Marsden returned. The result is this book - the account of a journey deferred.

Walking hundreds of miles through a landscape of cavernous gorges, tabletop mountains and semi-desert, Marsden encounters monks and hermits, rebels and farmers. And he creates an unforgettable picture of one of the most remote regions left on earth. As in his award-winning book 'The Spirit-Wrestlers', Marsden reminds us of the brilliant heights that travel writing can attain, whilst celebrating the ageless rewards of the open road and the people for whom the mythic and the everyday are inextricably joined.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B00BNY99IG
• ISBN13: 9780007173488
• Release Date: August 2006
• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.1" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

Mr. Marsden's Unfinished Business.

Finally Mr. Marsden returns to Ethiopia and gets to travel to the places denied him on his first visit 20 years ago in his first memoir "A FAR COUNTRY: TRAVELS IN ETHIOPIA (CENTURY TRAVELLERS)". He journeys from Lalibela all the way up to Axum stopping at at a multitude of villages and churches along the way. In typical Marsden fashion, what makes the book a gem is the historical information about the country the he mixes into his memoir; as well as the popular myths and legends surrounding the locations. I'd also highly recommend Marsden's historical biography of Emperor Tewodros, "The Barefoot Emperor: An Ethiopian Tragedy".