Skeletons on the Zahara
A True Story of Survival
A national bestseller, Skeletons on the Zahara is the true story of twelve American sailors shipwrecked on the west coast of Africa in 1815. After being enslaved by Arab nomads on the Sahara, half of the crew, led by Captain James Riley, must travel 800 miles across some of the harshest terrain on earth and past the fierce tribes of the Atlas foothills to Mogador (now Essaouira), for a chance to be ransomed. As a boy, Abraham Lincoln read Riley’s account of escape from brutal slavery and later counted it as one of the formative lessons of his youth. King retraced the captain’s route in the Sahara a month after 9-11. Widely reviewed and optioned for film, Skeletons was featured in Time and National Geographic Adventure, on German national television, and as the subject of a two-hour History Channel special documentary (A&E, in UK). It was translated into 10 foreign languages.
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Bestseller Lists
New York Times #20
New York Times paperback #18
San Francisco Chronicle #3
BookSense Hardcover and Trade Paperback #13
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Awards
Salon.com Top-10 Book of 2004
Amazon.com Top-10 History Book of 2004
Bear’s Top-10 Books (he’d want if stranded on a desert island)
Library of Virginia People’s Choice Non-fiction Award 2005
Best Books of 2004: Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, San Francisco Chronicle, and Washington Post
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Photos by Rémi Bénali.
CRITICAL ACCLAIM
“One of the most absorbing and satisfying books to come out in a very long time.”
–San Francisco Chronicle, Best Books of 2004
“Skeletons is a page-turner . . . structured . . . in such cinematic terms that one can almost see the words ‘An Anthony Minghella film’ superimposed on the opening scene—a caravan of 1,000 Arab merchants and their 4,000 camels stretched across the Sahara, caught in a howling sandstorm. . . .”
–Washington Post, Best Books of 2004
“Skeletons on the Zahara is a little bit H. Rider Haggard, a little bit Jon Krakauer, a little bit Nathaniel Philbrick and a whole lot of gruesome fun.”
–Salon.com, Top-10 Books of 2004
“A Homeric journey . . . vivid and often gut-wrenching prose.”
–Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Best Books of 2004
“It’s sensational stuff. . . . A fine, salty tale.”
–Entertainment Weekly
“An adventure classic.”
–Globe and Mail, Toronto
“King brings us a nearly 200-year-old story with all the freshness and impact of something that happened yesterday.”
–New Zealand Herald