Land of Heart’s Desire

by Alexander Cordell Book 6 in the Mortymer Saga series.

First published 1994

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3.8(14)

Iestyn Mortymer survives exile and the Afghan war and begins the dangerous journey back towards Wales. Durrani, a granddaughter of Dost Mohammad Khan, is drawn into his fate, while the power struggles surrounding Mohammad Akbar Khan make escape from Afghanistan inseparable from the politics of a country resisting foreign intervention.
Cordell combines a homecoming narrative with the continuing consequences of the First Anglo-Afghan War. The novel keeps Iestyn’s Welsh identity at its centre, but his relationship with Durrani prevents the imperial setting from becoming a mere obstacle course on the road home. Afghanistan, India and Wales become connected parts of the same nineteenth-century world, and the Mortymer family’s history is widened by migration, war and cross-cultural attachment.