When British anthropologist Nigel Barley set up home among the Dowayo people in northern Cameroon, he knew how fieldwork should be conducted. Unfortunately, nobody had told the Dowayo. His compulsive, witty account of first fieldwork offers a wonderfully inspiring introduction to the real life of a cultural anthropologist doing research in a Third World area. Both touching and hilarious, Barley’s unconventional story—in which he survived boredom, hostility, disaster, and illness—addresses many critical issues in anthropology and in fieldwork.

Nigel Barley (born 1947 in Kingston upon Thames, England) is an anthropologist famous for the books he has written on his experiences. He studied modern languages at Cambridge University and completed a doctorate in social anthropology at Oxford University. He held a number of academic positions before joining the British Museum as an assistant keeper in the Department of Ethnography, where he remained until 2003.

Barley's first book, The Innocent Anthropologist, was a witty and informative account of anthropological field work among the Dowayo people of Cameroon. Thereafter he published a number of works about Africa and Indonesia in such genres as travel, art, historical biography, and fiction.

Barley has been twice nominated for the Travelex Writer of the Year Award. In 2002, he won the Foreign Press Association prize for travel writing.