Under the Sun: The Letters of Bruce Chatwin - Hardcover

Chatwin, Bruce

3.79

244 ratings by Goodreads

9780224089890: Under the Sun: The Letters of Bruce Chatwin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0224089897 ISBN 13: 9780224089890

Publisher: Jonathan Cape, 2011

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The definitive collection of the letters of the enigmatic writer, providing new perspectives on his extraordinary life. Selected and edited by Elizabeth Chatwin and Nicholas Shakespeare, with an introduction by Elizabeth Chatwin.

"I am most certainly in the mood for writing letters."

Bruce Chatwin is one of the most significant British novelists and travel writers of our time. His books have become modern-day classics which defy categorisation, assimilating elements of fiction, essay, reportage, history and gossip, inspired by and reflecting his incredible journeys. Tragically, Chatwin's compelling narrative voice was cut off just as he had found it. One month before his death he lamented, "There are so many things I want to do." "Bruce had just begun" said his friend, Salman Rushdie, "we saw only the first act". While we shall never know the surprise of his unwritten works, Chatwin left behind a body of writing that is striking for its freshness; an authentic conduit which allows us to return to him and to be rewarded: a wealth of letters and postcards that he wrote, from his first week at school until shortly before his death at the age of forty-eight. Whether typed on Sotheby's notepaper or hastily scribbled, Chatwin's correspondence reveals more about himself than he was prepared to expose in his books; his health and finances, his literary ambitions and tastes, his uneasiness about his sexual orientation; above all, his lifelong quest for where to live. Written with the verve and sharpness of expression that first marked him out as a writer, Chatwin's letters gives a vivid synopsis of his changing interests and concerns throughout his life.

Comprising material collected over two decades from hundreds of contacts across five continents, Under the Sun is a valuable and illuminating record of one of the greatest and most enigmatic writers of the twentieth century.

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About the Author:

BRUCE CHATWIN reinvented British travel writing with his first book, In Patagonia, and followed it with four other books, each unique and extraordinary. He died in 1989.

ElLIZABETH CHATWIN was born in the U.S.A. She came to London in 1961 to work at Sotheby's, where she met Bruce Chatwin. They married in 1965. She now keeps Black Welsh Mountain Sheep.

NICHOLAS SHAKESPEARE was born in Worcester in 1957 and grew up in the Far East and Latin America. He is the
author of The Vision of the Elena Silves, winner of the Somerset Maugham and Betty Trask awards, The High Flyer, for which he was nominated as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists, The Dancer Upstairs, and most recently,
Inheritance. His non-fiction includes In Tasmania, winner of the 2007 Tasmania Book Prize, and an acclaimed biography of Bruce Chatwin.

From Booklist:

*Starred Review* This compilation of correspondence is aptly titled. British travel writer and novelist Chatwin traveled widely, constantly, and obsessively—everywhere under the sun, in other words. He possessed a restless soul, to be sure. And to a large degree, he was secretive; information about his homosexuality and his affliction with the AIDS virus was closely guarded. He cast a personal spell with his charm and a lasting one through his works, which are so imaginative they are pure excitement to read; at the same time, however, it can be confusing to determine whether to see them as fiction or nonfiction. Nevertheless, beginning with his first published book, In Patagonia (1977), Chatwin maintained a reputation among discerning readers for his riveting characters—invented or not is unimportant, even in his travel books—and his rigorously precise writing style. Chatwin’s wife and his biographer (Bruce Chatwin, 2000) combined efforts over a two-decade period to retrieve more than 90 percent of Chatwin’s correspondence from childhood to immediately before his untimely death at 48. Chatwin’s many appreciators will see the compilation in its overall significance as a personal visit with one of their literary heroes, as much as that is possible now. --Brad Hooper

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