James Albert Michener was an American author born on February 3, 1907 in Doylestown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. After graduating from Doylestown High School, he attended Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania to study Arts degree in English and History. His writing career would begin after being assigned as a naval historian in South Pacific during the Second World War. He would go on to publish more than 40 books that involved the incorporation of factual history and accurate descriptions of geographical locales. Thus, his works involved thorough research beforehand.
In 1963, Michener published Caravans, a fictional narrative about the protagonist Mark Miller who is posted in Kabul, Afghanistan at the United States Embassy. It tells the story, which is set in 1946, of Miller’s journey through Afghanistan as he learns more about the culture and the homogeneity of human nature. Drawing from his own experiences in Afghanistan, Michener illustrates its history and present, for instance witnessing the last caravan culture across the deserts and mountains. Michener combines his signature style of factual description of the landscape, Afghanistan in this case, with a romance story capturing the essence of the region. The New York Times praised the novel as “Brilliant . . . an extraordinary novel . . . The old nomadic trails across the mountains spring into existence.”
