In 2001, Rory Stewart set off from Herat to walk to Kabul via the mountains of Ghor in central Afghanistan.Caught between hostile nations, warring factions and competing ideologies, at the time, Afghanistan was in turmoil following the US invasion. Travelling entirely on foot and following the inaccessible, mountainous route once taken by the Mohgul Emperor, Babur the Great, Stewart was nearly defeated by the extreme, hostile conditions.Only due to the help of an unexpected companion and the generosity of the people he met on the way, did he survive to report back with unique insight on a region closed to the world by twenty-four years of war.This is literary travel writing, but with a greater element of adventure and danger. It is an account of what it is like to travel painfully and slowly on foot in an alien and hostile landscape.Stewart`s moving, sparsely poetic account of his walk across Afghanistan has been immediately hailed as a classic.The Places In Between won the Royal Society of Literature Oondatje Award and the Spirit of Scotland Award, and was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award, the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize and the Scottish Book of the Year Prize.