From the Bookshelf of Never too Late to Read Classics…

A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush

Eric Newby,

Evelyn Waugh (Introduction)

Start date: July 1, 2021

Finish date: August 31, 2021

Discussion: Non-Fiction Classics

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Oct 28, 2025 Anubha rated it it was amazing

A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush is one of the great classics of twentieth-century travel writing. In it, Eric Newby recounts his attempt to scale the Mir Samir mountain in Afghanistan’s Hindu Kush range with his friend, the diplomat Hugh Carless, in 1956. With little to no mountaineering experience between them, what unfolds is a chaotic, often hilarious adventure that blends absurdity with genuine wonder.

Newby had a background in fashion and quit his job to explore the north eastern reaches of A A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush is one of the great classics of twentieth-century travel writing. In it, Eric Newby recounts his attempt to scale the Mir Samir mountain in Afghanistan’s Hindu Kush range with his friend, the diplomat Hugh Carless, in 1956. With little to no mountaineering experience between them, what unfolds is a chaotic, often hilarious adventure that blends absurdity with genuine wonder.

Newby had a background in fashion and quit his job to explore the north eastern reaches of Afghanistan, specifically Nuristan with his friend Hugh Carless. Written just before Afghanistan’s long period of isolation and conflict, the book now reads like a record of a vanished world. The villages and customs Newby describes would soon become inaccessible to most outsiders. Newby's writing has a disarming honesty and is full of self-deprecatory humor. His deadpan humor often comes from understatement—he treats near-disasters as minor inconveniences, which makes them even funnier.

The narrative follows their preparation (which includes a crash-course in rock-climbing), a long overland drive through Turkey and Iran to Afghanistan, and then the trek and climb itself.
Along the way Newby forays into Afghanistan's history and its people. He describes the linguistic and cultural diversities of various tribes and the hardiness of the people who inhabit the remote and almost entirely inaccessible reaches of the Hindu Kush region. He masterfully describes the unsullied, desolate, and unforgiving landscape.

In an age where we are hyper connected and information about virtually anything is available at the tip of your fingers, it is hard to imagine a way of life where where people lived largely cut off from the modern world. Newby’s encounters with them feel like a window into a time and place untouched by globalization and so called "civilization".

For me this book goes right up next to The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen and Extremes Along the Silk Road by Nick Middleton (both 5 start reads for me). It captures the rugged beauty of the remote north-eastern Afghanistan and transports you to a place that is unchanged year-after-year. The life of those handful few who are inextricably connected to their land because it is their means of survival. ...more

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