Far Journeys: Photographs And Notebook

One hundred stunning photographs taken by the late novelist and travel writer complement his journals of the time that he spent in West Africa, Patagonia, Afghanistan, Java, Turkey, and other places, 10,000 first printing. First serial, The New Yorker.

Chatwin, who died in 1989, left behind thousands of photographs as well as 50 notebooks which were his source material for In Patagonia , The Songlines and his other books. This album, which combines 100 color photographs with excerpts from his travel notes, is a revelation, a breathtaking journey of discovery true to Chatwin's vision of the world as a place of untapped mystery and enchantment. Chatwin's disjointed jottings, though they lack the polish of his travel books, are sprinkled with telling observations of the people and places he encountered from Senegal to Turkey. His surprising photographs show a bat cave in Java, devastated shantytowns in Mauritania, painted temples in Nepal, mudbrick granaries in Mali, an azure mausoleum in Afghanistan and the Nazca lines tracing huge geometric forms in the Peruvian desert. Many of the photographs explore abstract, brightly colored patterns; others present soaring views of a windmill in England, West African workers or an abandoned Wyoming mine. 25,000 first printing; first serial to the New Yorker.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The late Chatwin, a noted traveloger ( In Patagonia , 1977; The Songlines , LJ 7/87), was also a photographer whose talents were recognized as early as his writing. This book contains a selection of photographs from his collection and excerpts from the 50 pocket-sized notebooks in which he recorded his experiences in the places he visited and with the people he met. The book is organized in three chapters, around reminiscences of Mauritania, Niger, and Afghanistan. The photographs (samples of which were seen) are not necessarily connected to the text but are certainly worthy of display. This coffee-table book deserves a place in all libraries that own Chatwin's books and that sustain sizable travel collections.
- Mary Ann Parker, California Dept. of Water Resources Law Lib., Sacramento
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.