In the course of researching the book, Ball traveled four times to the Sahara, including once on a 50cc motorcycle across the Hoggar, a remote mountainous region of the Algerian desert, where he stayed with the Tuareg. The novel has been translated into French, Spanish, German, Serbian, Dutch, Czech, and Turkish. The book was released in paperback in 2001 (Dell) and as an audio-book. The expedition was slaughtered by the Tuareg, a Berber tribe more commonly known as the Blue Men. The narrative shifts to the Sahara in the 1880s, during an ill-fated attempt by the French to drive a railroad through the heart of the desert. The first half of the story involves two cousins growing up during the Prussian Siege of Paris. Įmpires of Sand, (Bantam 1999), is a historical novel set in the Sahara Desert and 19th-century Paris. Trained in journalism but wishing to write fiction, Ball seriously began work on Empires of Sand in 1994, recovering 100 pages of a manuscript he had written in a Tunisian beach house in 1984 while traveling in North Africa, but later shelving the work to go into business.
He installed telecommunications equipment in Cameroun, renovated Victorian houses in Denver and pumped gasoline in the Grand Tetons. He drove a taxi in New York City and built a road in West Africa. He has been a pilot, sarcophagus maker, businessman and charity organizer. Career īall has traveled extensively, visiting more than 65 countries on six continents. He earned a master's of science degree in journalism from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1973. His father Jack served in World War II as a pilot, first in the Royal Air Force and then the US Navy.īall earned a bachelor's degree in political science from Metropolitan State University, Denver, where he was editor of the campus newspaper and active in student politics. Ball is currently working on his fourth novel.īall, a native of Denver, Colorado, was the middle of five children born to Carol and Jack Ball. The short story Provenance was included in an anthology entitled Rogues, published by Bantam Spectra in 2014.īall's works have been translated into 11 languages. His short story, The Scroll, was published in Warriors (2010), and Warriors 2 (2010), anthologies assembled by George R.R. Ballĭavid Wadsworth Ball (born September 12, 1949) is an American author whose novels include Empires of Sand (1999), China Run (2002) and Ironfire (2004). Historical fiction, suspense, short storyīenjamin A.W.
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