Sarah Searight lives and works in London. Searight is a writer, journalist and historian, specialised in the Middle East. She is a graduate of Oxford University and the School of Oriental and African Studies at London. Currently she lectures on the modern history, art and architecture of the Islamic world. She worked for many years as a journalist focusing mainly on regional cultural and economic issues. Her publications include New Orleans: a historical view (1973), The British in the Middle East (1979), and Steaming East: how steam transport developed on ancient trade routes between Europe and India: and Yemen: land and people. Her writings, like the most recent Lapis Lazuli: In Pursuit of a Celestial Stone (2010), are the result of travelling with an eye on historical background, on those who have lived, worked and also travelled, particularly in the Middle East and Central Asia, over the centuries. In her book Lapis Lazuli Searight seeks out the stone across a number of cultures and their histories and traverses a wide geographical area from Saharan Africa and the Middle East, to Central Asia and into Europe.