Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
From Khartoum to Jerusalem: The Dragoman Solomon Negima and His Clients (1885-1933)

From Khartoum to Jerusalem: The Dragoman Solomon Negima and His Clients (1885-1933)

Mairs, Rachel

Hardcover

African HistoryWriting InstructionEgypt

ISBN10: 1474255000
ISBN13: 9781474255004
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Published: May 5 2016
Pages: 280
Weight: 1.25
Height: 0.69 Width: 6.14 Depth: 9.21
Language: English

In 2014, a collection of papers was found on eBay: a scrapbook, inside which was written 'Testimonial Book of Dragoman Solomon N. Negima'. The letters pasted into the testimonial book bear recommendations of Negima's services as dragoman - a combination of tourist guide and interpreter - in the Holy Land, from travellers of different nationalities, social classes, religions, genders and races.

Using these reference letters, and the first-hand published and unpublished accounts of the travellers themselves, this book tells the stories of several such tourists, including the intrepid Victorian female traveller, Ellen E. Miller, and an African-American minister, Rev. Charles T. Walker, who had been born into slavery. Between the lines of others' letters, Solomon Negima's remarkable life story also emerges: from a German mission school in Jerusalem, to the British army in the Sudan, to a successful career as a dragoman in Palestine and Syria, and finally to comfortable retirement with his son, Aziz, and daughter, Olinda, at a Mormon mission in Jerusalem.

The discovery of this unique scrapbook allows us an insight into the lives of individuals whose histories would otherwise be lost to us, and a new perspective on the history of travel in the Middle East.

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