Tales from the life of Bruce Wannell: Adventurer, Linguist, Orientalist

There are those who swear he was a spy, others who insist he was too scatty or essentially lazy to be one. Whatever the truth, he was an exceptional linguist (Iranian, Afghan Persian, Arabic, Pushtu, Urdu, Swahili and the usual European languages) with connections in surprising places. His early death this year was a great sadness to many, including many writers who have contributed to this compendium of biographical tributes, published by Eland.