The Collector of Worlds

by Iliya Troyanov

Translated from the original German

by William Hobson

The Collector of Worlds is a meditation on the extraordinary life of infamous explorer Sir Richard Burton. The first westerner to make the hajj to Mecca, he also discovered the source of the Nile with Speke. His translation of the Arabian Nights is one of the great moments in the encounter between Islam and the West, that scandalised his contemporaries with its salty eroticism.
Troyanov’s novel does full justice to this great, controversial mediator between cultures. The book imagines his encounter with India as a young officer, and brings to life his trials and travels through the eyes of his Indian servant, the Sharif of Mecca and the former slave who guided Burton to the Nile.

Iliya Troyanov was born in Bulgaria. His family fled to West Germany to escape persecution and he grew up speaking German and English in Kenya. He is the author of Mumbai to Mecca, an account of his own pilgrimage to Islam’s holiest site. His work has won the Leipzig Book Fair, the Berliner Literaturpreis and other major German prizes.