By Mahmoud Zakaria Dame Freya Madeline Stark was one of the best-known figures of recent times, acclaimed for her intrepid exploration and her prolific writing. Her talent for befriending local people as she traveled gave her photographs a unique perspective. Born in Paris in 1893 and died in 1993 in Italy, she was brought up in Italy.
In 1911, she moved to England to study English and history at Bedford College. When World War I interrupted her studies, Stark served as a nurse on the Austrian front from 1915. At the age of 28, she began learning Arabic, and from 1928 onwards, she traveled almost continually through the Near East, Iraq, Persia and southern Arabia.
In 1950, she traveled extensively in Greece and Turkey, and between 1960 and 1970, she visited China, Afghanistan, Nepal and Kashmir. Stark’s journeys to Kuwait in 1932 and 1937 have been described in two references. The first one is the book “Freya Stark in Iraq and Kuwait”, published in 1994 by Malise Ruthven.
The second is an article published in Geographical Magazine in Oct 1937. In Nov 2003, the Center for Research and Studies on Kuwait republished and translated the two articles so that we could have a quick look at the past of Kuwait. This article reminds readers of the social and economic conditions in Kuwait at that time, giving us a true vision of life in Kuwait before the discovery of oil.
Of all the sights in Kuwait, Freya was most impressed by the Arab dhows in the harbor, built of shiny yellow wo.
