Chatwin, (Charles) Bruce

Chatwin, (Charles) Bruce (1940–89), travel writer and novelist, born in Sheffield. After Marlborough College, he worked at Sotheby's auction house, then studied archaeology at Edinburgh University. He travelled widely in Asia, Africa, and Europe, developing a passionate interest in nomads, and in the early 1970s worked on the Sunday Times Magazine. His first book, In Patagonia (1977), an imaginative blend of history, biography, anecdote, and geography, expanded the concept of travel writing. It mixes fact and fiction, delights in arcane data and paradox, and is written in a pungent style, with short sentences and exotic vocabulary. Four books followed in his lifetime. The Viceroy of Ouidah (1980) is a fictionalized account of a real-life slave trader. On the Black Hill (1982, novel) tells the story of reclusive Welsh twin brothers. His best-selling work, The Songlines (1987), incorporates some of his early speculations about nomads in a study of Aboriginal creation myths. Utz (1988) is a study of a collector of Meissen porcelain in Prague. What Am I Doing Here (1989) contains miscellaneous writings selected by Chatwin. Other aspects of his work are represented in Photographs and Notebooks (1993), edited by David King and F. Wyndham.