R.I.P. Eric Newby

Eric Newby, author of the classic travel book “A Short Walk In The Hindu Kush” and other works, passed away of natural causes Friday evening in Southern England. He was 86, and lived an adventurous life.

From the AP obituary:

Born and raised in London, Newby gave up a job in advertising in 1938 to sail on a Finnish grain ship to Australia and back, a voyage he later recounted in “The Last Grain Race.”

Newby served with the elite Special Boat Section during World War II. Captured during an operation off the Italian coast in 1942, he spent three years in a prisoner of war camp. He managed to escape, and before being recaptured met a young Italian-Slovenian woman, Wanda Skof, whom he married in 1946.

After the war Newby worked in the fashion business before setting out—with almost no mountaineering training—to climb Afghanistan’s Mir Samir. The journey, alternately funny and thrilling, is recounted in “A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush” (1958), a book that has remained in print for half a century.

On World Hum’s list of the top 30 travel books of all time, “A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush” ranked No. 17.

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