Launching of the book Viajes de Alí Bey [Travels of Ali Bey]

Casa Árabe and Editorial Almed launch in Cordoba the book Viajes de Alí Bey por África y Asia [Travels of Ali Bey in Africa and Asia]. On December 3rd, the businessman and writer Manuel Pimentel, the director of the publishing house, Jerónimo Páez, and the editor and translator of the book, Roger Mimó, took part in the event.

The launching took place at Casa Árabe’s headquarters in Cordoba (c/ Samuel de los Santos Gener, 9) at 19.30 and there was free entrance subjected to space availability.

This new edition consists of a box with three volumes in paperback binding with book flaps, and with illustrations and pull-down colour maps, a total of 888 pages.

For the first time since 1814, the whole text of Travels of Ali Bey, including its preamble, are presented with his prints and meaningful real size maps, accompanied by current photographs of the places mentioned by the author and new maps detailing his itinerary. Alí Bey, Domingo Badía Leblich’s alter ego, took from 1803 to 1808 quite a courageous journey which took him from Morocco to Turkey, passing by Tripoli, the island of Cyprus, Egypt, Arabia, Palestine and Syria. Besides his deep research on several fields such as geography, geology, ethnology and history of art, Alí Bey took advantage of his trip to carry out other political activities which also reflected his ideals and aimed to favour his homeland. Worshiped as a national hero by some people and abhorred by others who considered him fake, the true Alí Bey has been hidden behind a commonplace and prejudice curtain. In this current edition, Roger Mimó tries to tear that curtain apart through a thousand footnotes where he shows the absolute veracity and the admirable scientific precision of Ali Bey’s work.

Domingo Badía Leblich

He was born in Barcelona’s citadel in 1767, to a father from Aragon and a Belgian mother. Since he was pretty young he entered the public service and he combined the different post all over Spanish geography with personal projects which reflect his illustrated spirit and his deep scientific knowledge. With the support of Manuel Godoy, he carried out an exploration trip through Africa and Asia, where he passed disguised as a descendant of the Abbasid and assumed the name Ali Bey. His diary of that trip is the basis of the current book. On his return to Spain, as Godoy had lost his position and Carlos IV the throne, and being the country under the Napoleon’s Army control, Mr. Badia espoused the cause of Joseph Bonaparte, Joseph I, and was governor, first in Segovia and then in Cordoba. After Joseph I failed, he was forced to move to France, where he published the Travels in Africa for the first time. In 1818 and backed by the French government, he started a second expedition to the East where he became ill and died while travelling from Damascus to Mecca. He is buried in the Jordan dessert, close to the Qelat Daba small fort.