Chen Maoping (who took Sanmao as her nom de plume the name of a well-known cartoon character) was born in mainland China in 1943 and raised in Taiwan. She had a restless, nomadic spirit and spent many years in the 1960s and 70s wandering the world, arriving in the Spanish Sahara (as it was known in those days) in 1974. Stories of the Sahara, a collection of twenty essays first published in 1976, is Sanmao’s account of those years spent among the Sahrawi people.

Even today, Western Sahara is a rarely visited, remote, and quite inhospitable part of the world. Forty years ago, and especially for a young Chinese woman, it must have been a place of significant hardship and some danger. A little of that comes through in Sanmao’s memoir but what dominates the story is her strength, courage, humor, and an unusually distinctive voice. Direct, engaging, and deeply personal, Sanmao speaks across the decades. What an extraordinary person she must have been. It’s little wonder that she has become a cultural icon for those who are fascinated, as she was, by people living at the margins of the world.

Some of the essays, such as Night in the wasteland, Crying camels, and The mute slave, are perfect miniatures of the art of reportage. Vivid, urgent, and deeply compassionate, this is an unforgettable memoir and a must-read for those who love travel writing at its best.