Edgar Snow's Journey South of the Clouds

Two Edgar Snows--astute journalist and engaging travel writer--coexist in these 42 articles, a record of his 10-month adventure through Southeast Asia in 1930-1931. In India he describes the stirrings of national revolution as well as the aesthetic wonder of the Taj Mahal. He recounts a mountainous train ride through Vietnam under French colonial rule, and two brief romances with Burmese women. But it is as a political journalist that Snow (1905-1972) most effectively hooks one's interest here. In vigorous, riveting first-person reportage which prefigure his famous books on China, he exposes abuses of justice in Canton, urban cradle of the nationalist revolution; spotlights the oppressive, murderous government in China's Yunnan province; and criticizes Japanese rule of the island of Formosa. Farnsworth, a University of Missouri English professor, provides excellent introductory essays linking the selections. (June)