WHEN DREAMS COLLIDE: TRAVELS IN YUGOSLAVIA WITH REBECCA WEST. NICHOLAS ALLAN IN CONVERSATION WITH DAVID OLDROYD-BOLT.

Recently published When Dreams Collide is Allan’s intimate pilgrimage across the former states of Yugoslavia. Shedding the received knowledge of headlines, he explores the splintered co-evolution of these lands over the last ten centuries, guided by the inimitable Rebecca West’s masterpiece, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon.

Written 80 years in the past, West’s account serves as a fascinating reference for the optimistic interwar years of the 20th century between the Ottoman decline and the Nazi onset. The evolving balancing act of Tito’s Yugoslav experiment and the atrocities following its break-up were still to come. Collapsing empires and proud young nations, monasteries and mosques, brotherhood, hatred, war, music, frescoes, food, costume, people, mountains, rivers and seas, the distant rumbles of the centuries take many forms.

At a turning point in his own life, Allan was drawn to explore this complex area, through the lens of his part Eastern European heritage. He records personal encounters and richly drawn characters interwoven with history and art, politics and religion (too often one and the same).            

 “This is travel writing at its finest. First time author – Nicholas Allan – has cracked the art of taking a fascinatingly complicated region and made it very approachable. Well laid out reference sections, great photographs and maps complete this remarkable book.”                

          

After graduating from Cambridge in the History and Philosophy of Science, Nicholas Allan spent thirty years working in finance. For much of this time he was travelling, with long spells in each of Asia, London and the US. His main business interest now is in Indian hotels.

He has a deep love of music. Formerly Deputy Chair of the English National Opera, he is the Chair of the National Opera Studio, Britain’s leading operatic training organisation. He is also involved in a number of local charities around Devon, where he lives with his wife Sarah. They have four children and two grandchildren.

In his spare time he enjoys walking in the hills, singing and cryptic crosswords.