With Chatwin: Portrait of a Writer

The celebrated author of such beloved works as In Patagonia and The Songlines, Bruce Chatwin was a heartfelt nomad whose desire for adventure and enlightenment was made wholly evident by his writings. A great storyteller with a superbly original eye, Chatwin had achieved international literary stardom before his death from AIDS in 1989, at the age of forty-eight. In With Chatwin, Susannah Clapp also sheds light on some of the controversies surrounding the author’s legend, and presents the lavish and difficult contradictions of his life. As his first editor and one of his literary executors, Clapp was uncommonly close to both Chatwin’s life and work. Here, she calls upon Martin Amis, Edmund White, Salman Rushdie, and Chatwin’s wife, among others, to re-create the elusive realm in which he lived. The Chatwin that emerges in this portraiture is one whose imagination and passion will be cherished by generations of readers.