Author Anthony Smith
Publisher Readers Union
Year 1954
ISBN 0-14-009596-9 (1990 Penguin edition)
Language English
Binding Hardback
Pages 235
Size 145x220mm (5.75x8.75in)
Price £25+ (original edition)
On the subject of British and Commonwealth soft-skin transport, Blind White Fish in Persia is an account of an overland journey in a war-surplus Bedford MW lorry. It documents a small Oxford University expedition to Persia in 1950, exploring the Qanat underground irrigation tunnel and the book’s title refers to a species of white sightless fish discovered by the author and subsequently named Nemacheilus Smithi after him.
The four young men that made up the expedition also travelled in rural Persia where villagers still led medieval lives. Their particular expedition is considerably less well known than other Oxford and Cambridge Expeditions of the fifties such as the First Overland trip from London to Singapore in two Land Rover Station Wagons. Nevertheless it was the first major adventure for its author Anthony Smith (1926-2014), a man who went on numerous journeys after reading zoology at Balliol College, Oxford and becoming an RAF pilot.
Smith was an author, sailor, balloonist and former Tomorr…
