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Start giftingThe Stopping Places
This audiobook uses AI narration.
We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn moreRandom House presents the audiobook edition of The Stopping Places, written and read by Damian Le Bas.
*BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week*
'I needed to get to the stopping places, so I needed to get on the road. It was the road where I might at last find out where I belonged.'
Damian Le Bas grew up surrounded by Gypsy history. His great-grandmother would tell him stories of her childhood in the ancient Romani language; the places her family stopped and worked, the ways they lived, the superstitions and lores of their people. But his own experience of life on the road was limited to Ford Transit journeys from West Sussex to Hampshire to sell flowers.
In a bid to better understand his Gypsy heritage, the history of the Britain's Romanies and the rhythms of their life today, Damian sets out on a journey to discover the atchin tans, or stopping places – the old encampment sites known only to Travellers. Through winter frosts and summer dawns, from horse fairs to Gypsy churches, neon-lit lay-bys to fern-covered banks, Damian lives on the road, somewhere between the romanticised Gypsies of old, and their much-maligned descendants of today.
In this powerful and soulful debut, Damian le Bas brings the places, characters and stories of his to bold and vigorous life.
Damian Le Bas (Author, Reader)
Damian Le Bas is a writer, filmmaker and visual artist. His first book The Stopping Places won the Somerset Maugham Award, a Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Award, and was shortlisted for the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year. Damian is widely published as a journalist and poet and has taught for the Arvon foundation. A recipient of a Society of Authors Travelling Scholarship, he is a member of the European Film Academy, holds a First Class degree in Theology from the University of Oxford, and was awarded an honorary Master of Education by the University of Chichester. Besides getting in the sea he loves music, walking and spending time in the woods and hills with his family and friends. The Drowned Places is his second book.
Damian Le Bas (Author, Reader)
Damian Le Bas is a writer, filmmaker and visual artist. His first book The Stopping Places won the Somerset Maugham Award, a Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Award, and was shortlisted for the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year. Damian is widely published as a journalist and poet and has taught for the Arvon foundation. A recipient of a Society of Authors Travelling Scholarship, he is a member of the European Film Academy, holds a First Class degree in Theology from the University of Oxford, and was awarded an honorary Master of Education by the University of Chichester. Besides getting in the sea he loves music, walking and spending time in the woods and hills with his family and friends. The Drowned Places is his second book.