Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
Award-winning author, journalist and publisher Tom Stacey was recently in Bahrain to promote his newly-revised book, The Man Who Knew Everything.
During his 10-day sojourn on the island, Mr Stacey, a guest of the Ministry of Information, signed copies of his novel at Jashanmal's book store at the Seef Mall, delivered a lecture at Bahrain University and did the necessary groundwork for an all encompassing information book on Bahrain aimed at the international reader.
Mr Stacey first set foot on the shores of Bahrain in August 1956 as a foreign correspondent for Daily Express, a respected British newspaper that sold 4.5million copies daily in those days. "Bahrain was a very snug city with far more donkeys than motor cars.
"The jetty was built with a wee bit of concrete on the shores near Manama. But the tiny island was the centre of everything in the region and relatively more sophisticated compared to Dubai which was just dependant on its minimal trading up the creek and didn't even have a yard of tarmac."
The then 26-year-old Etonian travelled in an old Arabian vessel to the shores of Kuwait, UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and to the port of Gwadar in Pakistan.
He joined the tribe of Bani Kattab in Dubai and journeyed through the hot Arabian Desert to investigate claims about human trafficking that allegedly started from Baluchistan and ended on the sands of Saudi Arabia.
"My editor had asked to produce four feature articles on various aspects of the so called 'slave trade' with photographs of female slaves roped together. But through the course of my investigation I found out that this was a misconception and although women were transported illegally from Gwadar port to Ras Al Khaimah, Al Ain and Saudi Arabia the trafficking was consensual and more for domestic help than anything else."
It was through these travels that Mr Stacey familiarised himself with the Middle Eastern terrain and Gulf waters and set the plot of his book in a fictional island state of Khouwair.
The Man Who Knew Everything was first published as Deadline in 1988. It was made into a film starring John Hurt and Imogen Stubbs and was co-produced by BBC TV. Although Mr Stacey wrote the script of the movie he did not agree with the final and in his own words 'bastardised version' of the film.
This is why when the publishers wanted to re-release the book Mr Stacey thought it necessary to give it a new title so that the novel would be read not as a tragedy as it was portrayed in the film but as a classic story of a Fleet Street 'legend'.
This is the first time that Mr Stacey's novel has been launched in Bahraini bookstores. He has been involved with publishing since the early 70's and owns a publishing house in UK, Stacey International.
Mr Stacey, 76, completed his latest long short story of 7,000 words a fortnight ago. He has won the John Llewllyn Rhys prize for Literature and is a Fellow of the Royal society of Literature.
l The Man Who Knew Everything is available at Jashanmal's and is priced at BD4.8
