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The Lost Oasis

The True Story Behind The English Patient

Contributors

By Saul Kelly

Formats and Prices

Price

$21.99

Price

$28.99 CAD

Format

Format:

  1. Trade Paperback $21.99 $28.99 CAD
  2. ebook $11.99 $15.99 CAD

This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around September 22, 2004. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.

The Lost Oasis tells the true story behind The English Patient. An extraordinary episode in World War II, it describes the Zerzura Club, a group of desert explorers and adventurers who indulged in desert travel by early-model-motor cars and airplanes, and who searched for lost desert oases and ancient cities of vanished civilizations. In reality, they were mapping the desert for military reasons and espionage. The club’s members came from countries that soon would be enemies: England and the Allied Forces v. Italy and Germany. When war erupted in 1939, Ralph Bagnold founded the British Long Range Desert Group to spy on and disrupt Rommel’s advance on Cairo, while a fellow club member, Hungarian Count Almasy, succeeded in placing German spies there. Ultimately, the British prevailed. Saul Kelly’s riveting history draws on interviews with survivors and previously unknown documentary material in England, Italy, Germany, Hungary, and Egypt. His book reads like a thriller — with one key difference: it’s all true.

On Sale
Sep 22, 2004
Page Count
320 pages
Publisher
Basic Books
ISBN-13
9780813342580

Saul Kelly

About the Author

Saul Kelly is lecturer at King’s College, London, specializing in the history of the Great Powers in Northern Africa. He has written several books, including Cold War in the Desert, and with Charles Douglas-Home, Dignified and Efficient: The British Monarchy in the Twentieth Century. He lives in London.

Learn more about this author