The Secret of the Sahara: Kufara: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The Secret of the Sahara: Kufara, credited to Rosita Forbes, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of The Secret of the Sahara: Kufara by Rosita Forbes. Read in English by Steven Seitel In an age when women were expected to remain at home, entertain, and rear children, Rosita Forbes elected "to boldly go where no one had gone before..." Like her older contemporary, Gertrude Bell (who was focused more in the Persian and Iraqi areas), Forbes held a profound love of the vast desert and the people who lived there. That love shines out in this engaging travelogue of her November 1920 - February 1921 adventure. The expedition took her deep into the Libyan desert to seek a remote location, revered by local peoples, that was protected from outside intrusion. Forbes was the first European woman, and only the second outsider, to reach Kufara, amid trials of difficult travel, complications with camels, differing priorities of personnel, political intrigue, outright betrayal, climate hardships, and near-disastrous wanderings off the route when water was short or gone. Her sharing of the surroundings, situations, and cultural nuances makes the reader feel as if you were right there with her, shading your eyes as you await the capture of the sunrise or sunset mirage that will show the distant features you hope to locate. Join her entourage and travel along through the Libyan sands as she shares this historic journey of more than a thousand miles. ( summary by LCaulkins)

Recording facts

• Recording title: The Secret of the Sahara: Kufara
• Author credits: Rosita Forbes
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 16
• Listed recording duration: 10:46:59

Catalogue topics

• exploration
• women
• africa
• explorer
• camel
• oasis
• sahara
• women's history

Track guide

1. 00 Preface — 10:25
2. 01 We Enter on the Great Adventure — 42:46
3. 02 Plans for the Flight — 36:16
4. 03 The Escape from Jedabia — 52:37
5. 04 Across the Desert with She-ib — 49:51
6. 05 Triumphant Arrival at Jalo — 49:54
7. 06 Christmas in the Desert — 27:38
8. 07 A Faulty Guide on a Waterless Way — 45:33
9. 08 The Lake in the Desert — 51:21
10. 09 Treachery at Hawari — 27:18
11. 10 Feasts in the Holy Place — 37:06
12. 11 The ''Cities'' of Kufara — 38:09
13. 12 The Flight from Taj — 58:08
14. 13 Through the Mountains — 37:33
15. 14 The Elusive Dunes — 43:17
16. 15 The End of the Journey — 39:07

Listen to this recording

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Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.