‘Book Smugglers Of Timbuktu’: A high-stakes rescue of ancient intellectual treasures

A still from a 2012 video showing Islamist militants destroying an ancient shrine in Timbuktu. ‘The Book Smugglers Of Timbuktu’ by Charlie English tells the tale of the quest to save this storied city’s ancient treasures. Photo: AFP

The Book Smugglers Of Timbuktu by Charlie English is a painstakingly well-researched saga of a far-flung desert town in the West African nation of Mali and the incredible modern-day effort by that town’s librarians and archivists to save its cache of ancient manuscripts. But it’s also more than that: It appears to warn against taking anybody’s word at face value.

A fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and former head of international news at Britain’s The Guardian newspaper, English tells the story of Timbuktu by alternating between two timelines: the West’s long quest to discover the city, and the attempt in 2012 to protect its trove of texts from a civil war.