| In Patagonia | |
|---|---|
1st edition cover |
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| Author(s) | Bruce Chatwin |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Travel |
| Publisher | Jonathan Cape |
| Publication date | 1977 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 240 |
| ISBN | 0-224-01419-6 |
| OCLC Number | 3687188 |
| Dewey Decimal | 918.27/04/6 |
| LC Classification | F2936 .C47 |
In Patagonia is an English travel book by Bruce Chatwin, published in 1977.
Contents |
In 1972, Chatwin was hired by the Sunday Times Magazine as an adviser on art and architecture.[1] His association with the magazine cultivated his narrative skills and he travelled on many international assignments, writing on such subjects as Algerian migrant workers and the Great Wall of China, and interviewing such diverse people as André Malraux,[2] in France, and Nadezhda Mandelstam,[3] in the Soviet Union.
In 1972, Chatwin interviewed the 93-year-old architect and designer Eileen Gray in her Paris salon, where he noticed a map of the area of South America called Patagonia which she had painted.[4] "I've always wanted to go there," Bruce told her. "So have I," she replied, "go there for me." Two years later, in November 1974, Chatwin flew out to Lima in Peru, and reached Patagonia a month later.[5] When he arrived there he severed himself from the newspaper with a telegram: "Have gone to Patagonia." He spent six months there, a trip which resulted in the book In Patagonia (1977), which established his reputation as a travel writer.
"With this book," a reviewer noted, "Chatwin redefined the genre of travel writing with his little nuggets of historical information weaved intricately together with his search for anecdotes."[6] The New York Times described it as a "little masterpiece of travel, history, and adventure."[7] Chatwin's fascination with Patagonia had its roots in a scrap of mylodon skin that sailor Charley Milward, his grandmother's cousin, had sent back to England.[8]
After Chatwin had published the book and gained acclaim as a travel writer, however, residents in the region came forward to contradict the events depicted in the book.[9] It was the first, but not the last time in his career, that conversations and characters that Chatwin reported were alleged to have been fictionalised.
In Patagonia was awarded the Hawthornden Prize and the E. M. Forster Award