Genghis rides again
Mongolia has fired John Man's imagination since boyhood, when he read about American explorer Roy Chapman Andrews' discovery of dinosaur eggs in the 1920s. 'I wanted to travel to somewhere really, really remote. And Mongolia seemed as remote as I could hope for,' says Man, relaxing in a Mongolian bar in Beijing where throat singing hums in the background. The London-based Genghis Khan biographer, a guest at this year's Hong Kong Literary Festival, is in China to research his next book, Xanadu: In the Footsteps of Marco Polo.
In Man's youth, however, venturing to Mongolia wasn't easy because the country, a Soviet satellite, was closed to outsiders. There was a flicker of hope in the 60s, with excited campus talk of an expedition to the grasslands that arose as he took a postgraduate course in history and philosophy of science at Oxford University. To prepare for the trip he signed up to learn Mongolian at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, one of the few places in the world that offered the language. And although the expedition never took place, the fascination with the country stayed with him.
Man was born in Kent to affluent middle-class parents he described as 'big people in a small place' who never travelled much. He went to a prestigious public school and then Oxford to study German and French. When he had to face the real world, he went for journalism before becoming an editor with Time-Life Books. The publication of Alpha Beta and The Gutenberg Revolution established him as a writer.
The mid-90s saw growing interest in Mongolia as it opened its doors in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union. One editor suggested Man write a book about the Mongol empire, the largest land empire in history, stretching from China to Eastern Europe. Although tempted, he felt it would have to be original or enormous. He decided to write about the Gobi Desert. In 1998, the research for Gobi: Tracking the Desert, finally took him to Mongolia.
He wasn't disappointed. 'I do think the west somehow has a romantic notion about Mongolia, not without cause: it is probably the only place in the world where pastoral-nomadic culture still exists,' says Man. 'The people are so tough and resourceful and the landscape is so picturesque, all wonderfully appealing.'
As he travelled across the steppe he realised that to understand the country he had to understand one man in particular: Genghis Khan. 'It was he who founded the nation; united different tribes and gave Mongolians their identity,' adds Man, whose attempts to solve the mysteries surrounding his death - how and where he died, how and where he was buried - gave the focus to his biography Genghis Khan: Life, Death and Resurrection. An exhilarating blend of travel and history, it became a best-seller and has been translated into 18 languages, including Chinese.
Alus, the bar owner, hails from Inner Mongolia; he keenly seeks Man's autograph and presents him with Mongolian vodka. Alus says: 'I'd much prefer to read a Genghis biography by a westerner who is free from political baggage. For us Mongolians, Genghis is like a god.'