In 2003 Ilija Trojanow journeyed from Mumbai to Mecca; his travelogue (in the tradition of the rihla, one of the oldest genres of classical Arabic literature) describes the Hajj, the pilgrimage to the holy sites of Islam, with the eyes of a Westerner but with the heart of a Muslim.

A traveler all his life, Trojanow was born in communist Bulgaria in 1965, fled his homeland via Yugoslavia and Italy, was granted asylum in Germany, and spent ten years in Kenya and five in Mumbai before moving to Capetown. Handsomely made and wonderfully portable, this compact and literate travelogue is as much about the journey as the destination.