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A region steeped in fable and myth, Provence is a cultural
crossroads of European history. A source of inspiration to artists,
poets, and troubadours, it is now an enviable refuge for the
wealthy and fashionable. Nicholas Woodsworth, who was born in
Ottawa, Canada, married into a Provencal family and has lived in
the region for decades. Lovingly recounting vivid details of life
in Provence, he provides here a welcome antidote to the typical
rose-tinted, romantic view of it being a perennially sunny
destination for tourists. The true Provencaux have always lived a
hard life close to the land and the rhythms of the seasons. And it
is in the revelation and understanding of these lives, of the
Provencal people, that the truths of the region are to be found. As
much a study of Provencal culture and history as a memoir and
travel book, this is a deep and soulful investigation into a way of
life that remains very distinct from that of the rest of France."
Combining history and travel narrative, Nicholas Woodsworth
journeys around the eastern edge of the Mediterranean, the sea
which gave birth to Western civilisation. This sea, he says, should
not be seen as an empty space surrounded by Europe, Asia and
Africa, but as a continent in its own right, a place from whose
coastlines people look, not outwards to distant countries or that
capitals but inwards across the water to each other. The
Mediterranean has its own culture, its own life, its own way of
being. Setting out from Alexandria, in a journey marked by lively
and unpredictable encounters, Woodsworth discovershidden corners of
Venice, before arriving at Istanbul, where he installs himself in a
former Benedictine monastery. In all these places he finds traces
of a vibrant and cosmopolitan heritage, and asks what these cities
and their inhabitants owe to the sea.
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