Fiesta: A Journey Through Festivity
Reviewed By Janet Mawdesley December 6, 2025
Author Daniel Stables
Distributor: Amazon
ISBN: 978-1837732517
Publisher: Icon Books
Release Date: 14/08/2025
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Festivals are events that celebrate everything and anything, some with a history that goes back centuries and others that are of a more modern time, created from a myth, legend or simply a great idea based somewhat loosely in fact or maybe even fiction.
Daniel Stables, a well-known travel writer has always been fascinated by the many festivals that permeate the calendar. He eventually decided that it was time to set about recording some of the many fascinating, often downright scary events that draw huge crowds of revellers and Pilgrims on an annual basis, selecting some from his homeland of Britain to others in Thailand, Turkey, Malta and Venice to name just a few.
Each one of the festivals holds at some point, a period of utter transcendence, allowing in the instance of the Phuket Vegetarian Festival, the masong, those who are possessed by Spirit to have self-mutilation carried out during their time of trance.
The Mevlevis or Sufis known as the Whirling Dervishes, a branch of Islam made famous by the poet Rumi, comes under consideration with their Seb-i-Aris festival, held in Konya, Turkey attracting more than 2.4million people annually.
Stables found during his time spent at this festival that he pondered much the many aspects of tolerance and transcendence which is at the basis of the festival otherwise known as Rumi’s ‘wedding night’, the night he left this earth to be united with Allah.
Americas 4th July celebrations have been elevated to an art form over the years and contain everything from a ‘gala of gluttony’ to a quiet family gathering, then you have the more modern festivals or revivals of ancient festivals such as Glastonbury, now considered as a somewhat ‘bohemian’ event!
Rituals that go with death are observed, reflected upon, learned from and better understood, before Stables leaps into the Underworld where he gets to meet the Dark Lord, scares himself more than just a little and learns that we all go to the dark side in our lives so that we can emerge once again into the light.
Fiesta is a fascinating look into so many varied events that are in turn charming, horrifying, fascinating and in some cases completely insane, to the enchanting, all of which adds a little something magic that needs investigating, in a world that often lacks a certain mysticism.