Freya Stark

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Freya Madeline Stark (31 January 1893 – 9 May 1993) was an Anglo-Italian explorer and travel blogger.

Her father was a British writer who wrote more than two dozen books about her travels in the Middle East and Afghanistan, as well as a number of autobiographical works and essays.

She was one of the first non-Arabs to travel across the southern Arabian Desert.

Early life and studies

Stark was born in Paris on January 31, 1893, where her parents were studying art. Flora, her mother, was of English, French, German, and Polish descent. Robert, her father, was an English painter from Devon. Stark spent most of her childhood in northern Italy, aided by the fact that Pen Browning, a friend of her father's, had bought three houses in Asolo. Her maternal grandmother grew up in Genoa.

Her parents' marriage was unhappy from the start. They broke early in Stark's life. Jane Fletcher Geniesse, Stark's biographer, identified Obediah Dyer, as "a well-to-do young man from a wealthy family in New Orleans," quoting Stark's cousin Nora Stanton Barney. Even by Stark's confirmation, there was no corroboration of this account; she did not make any mention of it in any of her books, including her autobiography.

Stark received a copy of One Thousand and One Nights for her ninth birthday and became fascinated with the Orient. She was often sick when youth and housebound, so she found an outlet in reading. She loved reading French, particularly Alexandre Dumas, and learned herself Latin. Her hair was caught in a machine when she was thirteen years old, tearing her hair and pulling her right ear off. Because her face was disfigured, she had to wait for four months in hospital for skin grafts. She'll wear hats or bonnets, many inflamboyant ones, to hide her scars for the remainder of her life.

When she was 30 years old, Stark chose languages in university in an attempt to escape her difficult life as a flower farmer in northern Italy. Her professor suggested Icelandic but later, Persian, but she later decided to study Arabic and later, Persian. She studied at Bedford College, London, and the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), both part of the University of London.

Early travels and writings

Stark began training as a VAD and spent first with G. M. Trevelyan's British Red Cross ambulance unit, based in Villa Trento, near Udine, during World War I. Her mother had remained in Italy and bought a stake in a company; her sister Vera married the co-owner. Vera died as a result of a miscarriage in 1926. Vera was not able to live life on her own terms, and she would not do the same. She began traveling right afterward.

For the first time in years, she travelled to Asolo in November 1927. Later that month, she boarded a ship for Beirut, where her East travels began. She remained first at James Elroy Flecker's home in Lebanon, then in Baghdad, Iraq, where she met the British High Commissioner. She covertly traveled by donkey with a Druze guide and an English woman on this trip. As the Mandate for Syria and Lebanon, she kept the trip private, as the Mandate for Syria and Lebanon was under French influence. This was a repressive government structure that did not encourage travel within the region. The group travelled by night and took isolated, countryside roads. However, French Army officers who suspected the women of being spies, but then released them three days later. In an English magazine, Stark wrote about the repressive French government and the violence inflicted on the Syrian civilians.

By 1931, she had completed three thrilling treks into western Iran, portions of which no Westerner had ever visited, and had found the Assassins' long-fabled Valleys (Hashshashins). In The Valleys of the Assassins (1934), she outlined these finds. In 1933, she was given the Royal Geographic Society's Back Award.

Stark sailed down the Red Sea to Aden in 1934 to begin a new journey. She wished to trace the Hadhramaut, the southern Arabian hinterland. Only a handful of Western explorers had ventured into the area, but not so far or so often as she does. Her aim was to reach Shabwa, which was said to be Sheba's capital. However, she became ill on the trip and was ill. She had to be airlifted to a British hospital in Aden after suffering measles as a child in a harem as well as dysentery. Despite the fact that she never reached Shabwa, she was able to travel extensively and share many experiences. Stark has also returned to the area for new trips. According to a New Yorker biography, she encountered slavery during these journeys, which resulted in a "moral impasse." Stark argued that slavery had declined in societies that were less religious, and that as a result, slavery would decline in Arabia as it evolved. In three books, The Southern Gates of Arabia: A Journey in the Hadhramaut (1936), Seen In The Hadhramaut (1938) and A Winter in Arabia (1940). The Founder's Gold Medal of the Royal Geographic Society was awarded for her travels and accounts.

Later life

In the 1972 New Year's Honours, she was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE).

She died in Asolo on May 9, 1993, just a few months after her centennial birthday.

Personal life

She married Stewart Perowne, a British explorer, Arabist, and historian who had met him while working as his assistant in Aden in 1947, at the age of 54. Stark didn't know when they first married, although most of his friends did. Their marriage was plagued by all sorts, and Stark did not do well to being the wife of a public servant. The couple had no children when they first separated in 1952, but did not divorce.

Pere Peregrine died in 1989.

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