First published in the 1990s, The Egyptian Oases, by the writer and photographer Jordi Esteva (b. 1951, in Barcelona), has been reprinted by RM in fine new edition.

Siwa, Bahriya, Farafra, Dakhla, and Kharga are the names of Egypt’s five great oases, little worlds where for centuries time seemed to have stopped, immersed in legend and endowed with a culture of their own.

Before these islands in the deserts had succumbed to the onslaught of paved highways, electricity, and television, Jordi Esteva undertook to capture their essence. His book explores the particular microcosms of these ancient localities, even as they were about to vanish, through his own eyes and his personal experience.

“I wasn’t interested in capturing the dunes or the mirages, or the pharaohs’ temples lying in ruins amidst landscapes that would have delighted travelers of the Romantic age…. My approach was that of the patient hunter. I waited for the exact hour or moment, pursuing shadows. I wanted to seize the spirit of the place.”

The passage of time has conferred on the collection of photographs gathered in The Egyptian Oases a testimonial value increasingly scarce witnesses that speak to us of a vanished world.

This volume has been published in collaboration with the Museo Egipcio de Barcelona.