Stanley Stewart is a regular contributor to the Sunday Times and the Daily Telegraph where his work, taking him to over fifty countries, has won numberous prestigious awards, including, on three occasions, Travel Writer of the Year. He is the author of Old Serpent Nile, an account of his journey to the source of the river, and of Froniers of Heaven, the story of his journey across China from Shanghai to Xinjiang, for which he won the Thomas Cook/Daily Telegraph Travel Book Award. He was born in Ireland, grew up in Canada and lives in London.