1940-1989 · English travel writer and novelist, author of In Patagonia
Posthumous or imagined likeness of Bruce Chatwin. Source · CC BY 2.0
About Bruce Chatwin
Bruce Chatwin (1940–1989) was an English travel writer and novelist. He worked at Sotheby's, becoming an expert on Impressionist art, then studied archaeology at Edinburgh and wrote for The Sunday Times Magazine before leaving to travel to South America. In Patagonia (1977) made his name; it was followed by The Viceroy of Ouidah, On the Black Hill, The Songlines and Utz. He died of an AIDS-related illness at the age of forty-eight.
In Patagonia is an account of Chatwin's journey through the southern tip of South America in the mid-1970s, told in 97 short, numbered chapters that mix travel, history, legend and portraits of people met along the way. The book begins in childhood: in his grandmother's cabinet in England lay a piece of skin with coarse reddish hair, which he was told came from a 'brontosaurus' and had been sent by his grandmother's cousin, Charley Milward, a sailor who settled in Patagonia.
