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Bruce Chatwin
Nicholas Shakespeare
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Description for Bruce Chatwin
Paperback. A biography of Bruce Chatwin, based on private notebooks, diaries, letters and hundreds of interviews. It illuminates the many sides of Chatwin, from Sotheby's director, archaeologist, "Sunday Times" journalist and traveller to devoted husband and active gay, socialite and loner. Num Pages: 656 pages, illustrations facsimiles, geneal. table, portraits. BIC Classification: 2AB; BG; DSBH. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 199 x 129 x 40. Weight in Grams: 480. Good clean copy with some minor shelf wear
Bruce Chatwin's death in 1989 brought a meteoric career to an abrupt end, since he burst onto the literary scene in 1977 with his first book, In Patagonia.
Chatwin himself was different things to different people: a journalist, a photographer, an art collector, a restless traveller and a bestselling author; he was also a married man, an active homosexual, a socialite who loved to mix with the rich and famous, and a single-minded loner who explored the limits of extreme solitude.
From unrestricted access to Chatwin's private notebooks, diaries and letters, Nicholas Shakespeare has compiled the definitive biography of one of the most charismatic and elusive literary figures of our time.
'A magnificent work of empathy and detection'
Colin Thubron, Sunday Times
'Utterly compelling'
Philip Marsden, Mail on Sunday
'A fascinating account of the man behind the myth'
Ian Thomson, Guardian
Product Details
Format
Paperback
Publication date
2000
Publisher
Vintage
Condition
Used, Very Good
Number of Pages
656
Place of Publication
London, United Kingdom
ISBN
9780099289975
SKU
KKD0006186
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 2 to 4 working days
Ref
99-2
About Nicholas Shakespeare
Nicholas Shakespeare was born in 1957. The son of a diplomat, much of his youth was spent in the Far East and South America. His novels have been translated into twenty languages. They include The Vision of Elena Silves, winner of the Somerset Maugham Award, Snowleg, and The Dancer Upstairs, which was chosen by the American Libraries Association in 1997 as the year's best novel, and in 2001 was made into a film of the same name by John Malkovich. His most recent novel is Inheritance. He is married with two small boys and currently lives in Oxford.
Reviews for Bruce Chatwin
Of my contemporaries he had the most erudite and possibly the most brilliant mind
Salman Rushdie An epic piece of work of immense satisfaction... Awe-inspiring
The Times
Comprehensively researched, elegantly written, perfectly balanced between the life, the books and the ideas
Independent on Sunday
Quite simply, one of the most beautifully written, painstakingly researched and cleverly constructed biographies of this decade... Original, intelligent and observant
Literary Review
A fascinating account of the man behind the myth
Guardian
In Nicholas Shakespeare he has found, posthumously, the right biographer. This is a magnificent work of empathy and detection
Colin Thubron
Sunday Times
I take my scalp off to Nicholas Shakespeare. Biographies don’t come any better than this. Eight years in the writing, Bruce Chatwin is a glorious quilt-work of texts, voices and places, joined together with consummate judgement... Wisely Nicholas Shakespeare eschews detailed literary analysis. Such is his skill as a biographer, there is no need
Justin Wintle
Financial Times
It is so difficult to have any sense of another person’s inner life, but in this vastly enjoyable book Shakespeare successfully shines the torch onto a psychic landscape peopled by the fearful monsters that Chatwin kept mostly at bay by continually moving and reinventing himself
Sara Wheeler
Independent
Shakespeare must be praised for his energy, his always lucid presentation, and – above all – for his mostly poker-faced willingness to leave us as suspiciously intrigued by his strange subject as we were before
Ian Hamilton
Sunday Times
This is an authorised biography, but with none of the inhibition that an authorised biography usually entails. Nicholas Shakespeare has obviously done his research thoroughly – travelled in Chatwin’s footsteps, interviewed all his friends – and, although I am still not entirely convinced that Bruce Chatwin was the most fascinating man who ever lived, he proves quite fascinating enough to sustain these 550 pages
Lynn Barber
Daily Telegraph
Salman Rushdie An epic piece of work of immense satisfaction... Awe-inspiring
The Times
Comprehensively researched, elegantly written, perfectly balanced between the life, the books and the ideas
Independent on Sunday
Quite simply, one of the most beautifully written, painstakingly researched and cleverly constructed biographies of this decade... Original, intelligent and observant
Literary Review
A fascinating account of the man behind the myth
Guardian
In Nicholas Shakespeare he has found, posthumously, the right biographer. This is a magnificent work of empathy and detection
Colin Thubron
Sunday Times
I take my scalp off to Nicholas Shakespeare. Biographies don’t come any better than this. Eight years in the writing, Bruce Chatwin is a glorious quilt-work of texts, voices and places, joined together with consummate judgement... Wisely Nicholas Shakespeare eschews detailed literary analysis. Such is his skill as a biographer, there is no need
Justin Wintle
Financial Times
It is so difficult to have any sense of another person’s inner life, but in this vastly enjoyable book Shakespeare successfully shines the torch onto a psychic landscape peopled by the fearful monsters that Chatwin kept mostly at bay by continually moving and reinventing himself
Sara Wheeler
Independent
Shakespeare must be praised for his energy, his always lucid presentation, and – above all – for his mostly poker-faced willingness to leave us as suspiciously intrigued by his strange subject as we were before
Ian Hamilton
Sunday Times
This is an authorised biography, but with none of the inhibition that an authorised biography usually entails. Nicholas Shakespeare has obviously done his research thoroughly – travelled in Chatwin’s footsteps, interviewed all his friends – and, although I am still not entirely convinced that Bruce Chatwin was the most fascinating man who ever lived, he proves quite fascinating enough to sustain these 550 pages
Lynn Barber
Daily Telegraph