The Collector of Worlds

There is something fitting about the fact that the author of a novel about Victorian soldier, explorer, linguist and polymath Richard Francis Burton is a Bulgarian whose family fled to West Germany to escape persecution before he emigrated to Kenya and later lived in India and South Africa.

Troyanov's peripatetic existence mirrors Burton's restlessness and his desire to be anywhere but his homeland. 'He couldn't stay in Kazeh, and the thought of going back to England, the only place in the world where he could not feel at home, was repugnant.'

Such reluctance is astonishing for Burton's Indian servant Naukaram, who accompanies his master back to England following his disgrace: '"What manner of men must you Angrezi be that you leave such a paradise and travel to a god-forsaken land like ours without compulsion?"' Similarly, Baba Sidi Bombay, who travels with Burton and Speke on their journey through Africa to discover the source of the Nile, finally understands that the wazungu [white people; lit. 'those who turn around in circles'] 'depend on suffering the way others depend on alcohol or khat or ganja.'

Burton was a driven man - driven by a thirst for knowledge and a desire to seek out different cultures and ways of being. Disgusted with the smug, blinkered ways of the British army officers in India, he immersed himself not in the lethargic life of the mess, but in the world of the Indians around him. He employed a guru to teach him Indian dialects, took an Indian lover - who controlled and extended their love-making by telling him stories, Sheherezade-like, to distract him. Distrusted by his fellow officers, Burton's felicity with language enabled him to live the first of several double lives that culminated in his pilgrimage to Mecca - the Hajj.

Disguised as Mirza Abdullah, a Pathan from India, this was Burton's greatest - and most daring - adventure, for disclosure of his true identity would have led to his execution. And while the book he wrote about this sacrilegious feat was feted in Britain as a 'glittering achievement', Burton's reasons for undertaking the journey - according to Troyanov - transcended the illusory. Yes, he was proud of pulling the wool over his fellow travellers' eyes, but he also wanted to discover more about these people and about Arabia, and to discover whether he could find within himself the profound sense of God that was so central to their lives.

In Africa, however, Burton was weary, troubled and ill. Conflict with Speke and innumerable other problems ground him down. The diminution of his questing spirit was further exacerbated by his inevitable return to England, where he ended his days.

Troyanov's novel - in William Hobson's beautifully-judged translation - is a hymn not only to the enigmatic Burton, but also to the people around him and to the dusty, sandy otherness of India, Arabia and Africa.

Each section of the book is enlivened by the presence of a different narrator, each with an agenda and fully-formed personality of their own. Through their eyes we see a different aspect of Burton to the one he chooses to reveal to us in his words, the 'furious patience' of 'the one that flies alone'.

Troyanov's peripatetic existence mirrors Burton's restlessness and his desire to be anywhere but his homeland. 'He couldn't stay in Kazeh, and the thought of going back to England, the only place in the world where he could not feel at home, was repugnant.'

Such reluctance is astonishing for Burton's Indian servant Naukaram, who accompanies his master back to England following his disgrace: '"What manner of men must you Angrezi be that you leave such a paradise and travel to a god-forsaken land like ours without compulsion?"' Similarly, Baba Sidi Bombay, who travels with Burton and Speke on their journey through Africa to discover the source of the Nile, finally understands that the wazungu [white people; lit. 'those who turn around in circles'] 'depend on suffering the way others depend on alcohol or khat or ganja.'

Burton was a driven man - driven by a thirst for knowledge and a desire to seek out different cultures and ways of being. Disgusted with the smug, blinkered ways of the British army officers in India, he immersed himself not in the lethargic life of the mess, but in the world of the Indians around him. He employed a guru to teach him Indian dialects, took an Indian lover - who controlled and extended their love-making by telling him stories, Sheherezade-like, to distract him. Distrusted by his fellow officers, Burton's felicity with language enabled him to live the first of several double lives that culminated in his pilgrimage to Mecca - the Hajj.

Disguised as Mirza Abdullah, a Pathan from India, this was Burton's greatest - and most daring - adventure, for disclosure of his true identity would have led to his execution. And while the book he wrote about this sacrilegious feat was feted in Britain as a 'glittering achievement', Burton's reasons for undertaking the journey - according to Troyanov - transcended the illusory. Yes, he was proud of pulling the wool over his fellow travellers' eyes, but he also wanted to discover more about these people and about Arabia, and to discover whether he could find within himself the profound sense of God that was so central to their lives.

In Africa, however, Burton was weary, troubled and ill. Conflict with Speke and innumerable other problems ground him down. The diminution of his questing spirit was further exacerbated by his inevitable return to England, where he ended his days.

Troyanov's novel - in William Hobson's beautifully-judged translation - is a hymn not only to the enigmatic Burton, but also to the people around him and to the dusty, sandy otherness of India, Arabia and Africa.

Each section of the book is enlivened by the presence of a different narrator, each with an agenda and fully-formed personality of their own. Through their eyes we see a different aspect of Burton to the one he chooses to reveal to us in his words, the 'furious patience' of 'the one that flies alone'.