Robert Twigger

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Robert Twigger (born in Brno) is a British writer and adventurer.

[edit] Career

In 2007 all 5000 Waterstones Bookshop staff voted Twigger's Angry White Pyjamas the best sports book of the last 25 years.

In addition to having written six non-fiction/autobiographical travel books, he also writes articles for newspapers and magazines such as the Daily Telegraph, Maxim and Esquire, and this area of his work has led him to train in bullfighting in Spain and report on chain gangs in Arizona.

A Channel 4 documentary, entitled Big Snake, was made of his journey to Indonesia where he captured the world's longest snake, a reticulated python.

In 2004 he completed an epic three year, two thousand mile journey across North West Canada in the wake of eighteenth century explorer and trapper Alexander Mackenzie. Twigger and his team were the first to successfully complete this route since 1793.

In 2005-6 he spent several months in the Sahara Desert searching for lost oases.

He is married and lives in Cairo.

[edit] Selected works

  • Angry White Pyjamas (1997), an account of his year spent training at the Yoshinkan Aikido Hombu Dojo in Tokyo, Japan. (The book won the Somerset Maugham Award and the William Hill Sports Book of the Year in 1998).
  • Big Snake (1999), the story of his journey to Indonesia to attempt to capture the longest snake in the world.
  • The Extinction Club (2001), an account of Twigger's research into the Milu, a species of deer which was thought to have become extinct.
  • Being a Man (in the lousy modern world) (2002), Twigger's thoughts and observations on the nature of masculinity and its current state at the beginning of the 21st-century.
  • Voyageur - Across the Rocky Mountains in a Birchbark Canoe (2006), the story of his three year epic, two thousand mile journey across North West Canada in the wake of eighteenth century explorer and trapper Alexander Mackenzie.
  • Lost Oasis: A Desert Adventure: In Search Of Paradise (2007), in search of paradise: a desert adventure in the footsteps of seasoned explorers such as Theodore Almasy (the inspiration for The English Patient) who tried to locate the lost oasis of Zezura, reportedly home to hordes of treasure, flocks of birds and a lush, verdant valley.

[edit] External links

Preceded by
Simon Hughes
William Hill Sports Book of the Year winner
1998
Succeeded by
Derek Birley