`Clark leads the reader through Yemen’s turbulent past with humour and perception… The book brilliantly exposes Yemen’s tragicomic modern history.’
–Richard Beeston, The Times, 27th February 2010

`Excellent new book on the country, part history and part travelogue.’ –Richard Beeston, London Review of Books Bookshop, 8th April 2010

`This book is compulsory reading for anyone who wants to get to grips with Yemen’s pit of slithery serpents.’ –The Economist, 23rd April 2010

`Easily the best and most readable account of Yemen’s current problems and their daunting complexity.’
–Brian Whitaker, The Guardian, 24th April 2010

`Clark tracks Yemen’s turbulent past and unstable present with a light touch, combining historical travelogue with investigative reportage.’
–Philip McCrum, Middle East International – Issue 14, May 2010

`Victoria Clark’s timely book offers a vivid portrait of Osama Bin Laden’s ancestral homeland.’
–Lucy Popescu, Tribune, 18th June 2010

`…experienced foreign correspondent casts a timely light on the complex fissiparous, impoverished country now seen as a haven for Al-Qaeda.’
–Harry Eyres, Financial Times, 26th/27th June 2010

Victoria Clark is a former correspondent and Moscow bureau chief for the Observer. She now works as a freelance journalist and writer, contributing to the Independent, Prospect magazine, and the Tablet.