Présentation de l'éditeur
A Winter in the Middle of Two Seas: Real Stories from Bahrain was written during and after the author's four-month stay in the Middle Eastern island kingdom of Bahrain. With a photographer's eye, a journalist's nose for news and a poet's way with words, Ronald W. Kenyon recounts his observations and displays his insightful understanding of Arab and Islamic culture, customs and religion with particular emphasis on Bahrain. In a wide-ranging series of vignettes and anecdotes, the author takes the reader from the temples and towns of the 5,000-year old Dilmun civilization to the glitz of twenty-first century shopping malls. He offers vivid descriptions of sanguinary religious rites, the tribulations of haggling with a taxi driver whose fare has to be paid in three different currencies and his body clock's disorientation from dealing with three different weekends. While not a guidebook, A Winter in the Middle of Two Seas is a meticulously-researched primer for anyone visiting or working in Bahrain or the armchair traveler who wants to learn more about current events in the Middle East than what appears in the mainstream media. In the last chapter of the book, entitled "The Truth about Bahrain," the author strives for objectivity, attempting to set the record straight by placing the current events in Bahrain in their historical, geopolitical and religious context. The author is optimistic about the future of Bahrain and dedicates his book to the people of Bahrain "in the earnest hope that they may, with God's grace, achieve everlasting harmony."
Biographie de l'auteur
Ronald W. Kenyon was born and raised in Ashland, Kentucky. He was admitted to the Honors Program at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he studied English, Spanish and political science and won two Hopwood creative writing awards. The recipient of a Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship, he attended graduate school at Stanford University and studied at St. Lawrence University under a National Defense Education Act scholarship. He was certified as a French-English liaison interpreter by the U.S. Department of State Office of Language Services. Ronald W. Kenyon spent ten years living and working in the Middle East and has researched the region extensively. Aside from Bahrain, he has traveled to 47 countries in North and South America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Also by Ronald W. Kenyon: Divagations: Collected Poetry 1959-1996 Monville: Forgotten Luminary of the French Enlightenment Monville: l'inconnu des Lumières Le Petit Kenyon: Dining in the Environs of Paris for Walkers Statues of Liberty: Real Stories from France On the Trail in France Photography: Metro Portraits Metro Messages My Beautiful France Île-de-France, terres d'inspiration
