An achievement of great and lasting brilliance
- Patrick Leigh Fermor,
This transcendentally gifted writer is, of course, one of the two or three best living travel writers
Independent
A travel book which tells us more about this strange, sometimes terrible region and its people than a library of more pretentious works
Literary Review
An intrepid traveller, who also writes beautifully, with wit and erudition... The result is a rare first-hand account of a country seen through the eyes of one who has experienced what he describes and who is in a position to understand what he sees... He penetrates where most would believe it is impossible for a foreigner to go
Spectator