RETUTN TO THE MARSHES

If the garden of eden existed anywhere it was to be found between the

Tigris andthe Euphrates.

And it is between these rivers that the beautiful and extraordinary

world of the marsh Arabs of Iraq lies.

Twenty years ago,Gavin Yound was introduced to the marshes by one of the legendary travellers of the twentieth century.

Wilfried Thesiger.

with Thesiger he came to accept waterways instead of roads, canoes instead of cars.

Waving rushes instead of grass and trees, and houses built from reeds.

His companions were descended from the ancient sumerians and were surronded,not by machines,but by water buffaloes,wild boar,otters,pelicans and great flocks of wildfowl.

Wend Garvin Yound left the marches in 1956 he was not only in love with this new world but thought that he might never see it again.

However two yeas ago, chance took him back there and he found, to his great joy, that he was remembered and that the changes in the marshes, unlike those in the rest of the world, had been changes for the better.

He took with him Nik Wheeler, whose exquisite photographs have recorded every aspect of life in the marshes and have captured in an extraordinary way the vitality and the quality of its people and their unique heritage.

Garvin Yound has woven his personal experiences and the eventful history of the marsh poeple, dating back to before the days of Noah's flood, into an absorbing narrative.