The Afghan Amulet: Travels from the Hindu Kush to Razgrad

An elaborately embroidered tribal dress and an amulet seen in a London shop set Paine off on a two-year hunt through Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kurdistan, Iran, Kohistan, Makran, Turkey, Indus and Bulgaria to find their origin. This 62-year-old British embroidery expert slips across closed borders, navigates through tribal warfare, sleeps on dirt floors, drinks tea brewed from muddy waters and protects herself against the kidnapping, stoning and rape that lone women risk in some Muslim countries by covering herself in native dress. Everywhere she goes, she is warned of danger; everywhere people identify the source of her stitchings as somewhere over the next mountain. Undeterred, Paine follows each clue until, in Bulgaria, she finds the answer to her search. The impoverished conditions, the superstitions that have endured for thousands of years-epitomized by the embroidered symbols that she is tracking-and the tribal and intranational fighting draw such a horrendous picture that the reader marvels at and admires Paine's derring-do. (Oct.)