Johann Schiltberger's life and travels: A historical novel waiting to be written
As far as I can tell--desultory Googling--this has not happened. There hasn't been a translation of his travelogue into English since 1897, either.
Anyway, this crazy Bavarian fuck had some career during the first half of the fifteenth century. He fought for the Hungarians against the Ottomans, was taken prisoner in 1396 after the Ottomans kicked the Hungarians' ass at the Battle of Nicopolis, served the sultan for a while, was then captured by Tamurlane (Timur) in 1402, and later passed around various shahs while generally travelling all over Central Asia, Anatolia, the northern Middle East, Southeastern Europe, and even Siberia (as you can see in the map below) before returning home to write it all up before promptly dying.
More here, and here's his travelogue:
I came across this guy early on in Caroline Finkel's Osman's Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire, which I'm now reading. Great stuff. A nice Vidalian historical novel would be great, and, yes, that could be filmed, too. Try getting an executive at either a publishing house or especially a movie studio to see a market for that, but you never know.
Maybe I can rouse myself to rewrite his travelogue for the four people, including my cat, who will read it. Well, the cat will sit on the manuscript and purr, which is pretty good, actually.
Anyway, this crazy Bavarian fuck had some career during the first half of the fifteenth century. He fought for the Hungarians against the Ottomans, was taken prisoner in 1396 after the Ottomans kicked the Hungarians' ass at the Battle of Nicopolis, served the sultan for a while, was then captured by Tamurlane (Timur) in 1402, and later passed around various shahs while generally travelling all over Central Asia, Anatolia, the northern Middle East, Southeastern Europe, and even Siberia (as you can see in the map below) before returning home to write it all up before promptly dying.
More here, and here's his travelogue:
I came across this guy early on in Caroline Finkel's Osman's Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire, which I'm now reading. Great stuff. A nice Vidalian historical novel would be great, and, yes, that could be filmed, too. Try getting an executive at either a publishing house or especially a movie studio to see a market for that, but you never know.
Maybe I can rouse myself to rewrite his travelogue for the four people, including my cat, who will read it. Well, the cat will sit on the manuscript and purr, which is pretty good, actually.