Travel Blog: Literary Travel
Travel Writing, Heartbreak and Granta’s 100th Issue
by Frank Bures | 01.16.08 | 11:27 AM ET
Granta‘s 100th issue is out now, and for the occasion Simon Garfield has written a fascinating account of its history in the Guardian. This is the magazine that was my first travel-writing love, and also the first to break my heart.
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Yahoo! BuzzCrime Fiction Where You Least Expect It
by Julia Ross | 01.03.08 | 11:00 AM ET
One of my New Year’s resolutions is to break out of an entrenched non-fiction habit—memoirs and travel narratives are stacked 15-high beside my bed right now—and read more novels that convey a sense of place or culture. I’ve previously enjoyed crime fiction set in foreign countries, including John Burdett’s Bangkok 8 and Qiu Xiaolong’s Death of A Red Heroine, but had no idea the genre had expanded so much, and not only among those writing in English.
South Africa: Three Great Books
by Eva Holland | 12.18.07 | 7:37 AM ET
In Three Great Books, we highlight must-reads for a topic, city or country.
Photo by Victor Geere via Flickr (Creative Commons)
The German philosopher Friedrich Schiller believed that periods of oppression and tyranny produce the greatest works of art; in his words, that “truth and beauty, with their own indestructible vitality, struggle triumphantly to the surface.” In South Africa’s case, at least, he just may have been right. The apartheid era and its aftermath have inspired a wealth of high-quality literature from the likes of Alan Paton, Zakes Mda and Nobel Prize winners Nadine Gordimer and J.M. Coetzee. Three great books:
Laurence Bergreen’s Five Best Books on Exploration
by Michael Yessis | 12.04.07 | 7:27 AM ET
The author of the new and well-received book Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu offered his five best books on exploration for the Wall Street Journal. His picks, in order: Henry M. Stanley’s “Through the Dark Continent,” William Dalrymple’s “In Xanadu,” Ryszard Kapuscinski’s “Travels With Herodotus,” Giles Milton’s “White Gold” and Ross E. Dunn’s retelling of “The Adventures of Ibn Battuta.”
Rory MacLean’s ‘Best Travel Books for Christmas’
by Jim Benning | 12.03.07 | 10:25 AM ET
Among the titles making the writer’s list: the English language publication of Nicolas Bouvier’s Way of the World (“this year’s most important event in travel literature”), Peter Godwin’s When a Crocodile Eats the Sun (“a powerful, emotional and provoking travel book that should be read by everyone heading to southern Africa”) and the paperback publication of Shadow of the Silk Road (“masterful”).
Happy Birthday, Mark Twain and Jonathan Swift
by Michael Yessis | 11.30.07 | 10:46 AM ET
Heard on the radio this morning that Mark Twain and Jonathan Swift, creators of the World Hum’s No. 7 and No. 6 greatest fictional travelers respectively, share a birthday today. Twain was born on this day in Missouri in 1835; Swift was born in Dublin in 1667. While in Ireland last week, I saw an early 19th century edition of “Gulliver’s Travels” at the Dublin Writers Musuem. The page in the photograph was surreptitiously taken there.
New Travel Book: ‘Children of Jihad
by Julia Ross | 11.27.07 | 12:14 PM ET
Full title: “Children of Jihad: A Young American’s Travels Among the Youth of the Middle East”
Author: Jared Cohen, U.S. State Department policy planner and 25-year-old second-time author
Released: Oct. 25, 2007
Travel genre: Travel memoir, cultural commentary
Territory covered: Internet cafes and house parties from Beirut to Tehran
New Travel Book: ‘Our Dumb World’
by Michael Yessis | 10.31.07 | 3:23 PM ET
Full title: “Our Dumb World: The Onion’s Atlas of the Planet Earth, 73rd Edition”
Author: Writers of The Onion
Released: Oct. 30, 2007
Travel genre: Parody, atlas
Territory covered: The world, from “Allah’s Cat Box” (Afghanistan) to “The Bridebasket of Europe” (Ukraine)
Doris Lessing, Travel Writing and the Nobel Prize for Literature
by Eva Holland | 10.19.07 | 5:35 AM ET
Chalk up one Nobel Prize victory for travel writing! Okay, okay. Admittedly this year’s winner Doris Lessing is much better known for writing novels and short stories than for her travel memoir, African Laughter: Four Visits to Zimbabwe, about her return to her newly-independent childhood home after decades of government-imposed exile. But much of her best-known fiction, from debut novel “The Grass Is Singing” to the “Children of Violence” series, also focuses on the white settler experience in Rhodesia, and the details of place and time are vital to the story in each work.
Is Colombia the New New Zealand?
by Eva Holland | 10.16.07 | 2:11 PM ET
We’ve been tracking Colombia’s rise from narcotics netherworld to “hipster tropical destination du jour” for some time now, and it looks like an upcoming potential blockbuster movie could help complete the transition. “Love in the Time of Cholera,” based on the novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, hits North American theaters in November. Last week Jaunted predicted an accompanying movie-tourism explosion. Amandak writes: “If you haven’t read Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s fantastic book Love in the Time of Cholera you should, now. It’s about to become for Colombia what Lord of the Rings was for New Zealand: a major tourism generator. The nice part is that Garcia Marquez really did set his book in Colombia, whereas the whole Lord of the Rings thing was kind of a scam, really.”
10 Great Fictional Places, From Cicily, Alaska to Brokeback Mountain
by Jim Benning | 10.01.07 | 12:46 PM ET
In addition to featuring our list of the 10 Greatest Fictional Travelers, Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle highlighted editors’ 10 favorite fictional places, “not because they are the most beautiful or Utopian (yawn), but because the description or script struck a chord that made us yearn to go there—just as good travel writing and videos should do for real destinations.” They came up with an intriguing mix from books, TV and movies, including Cicily, Alaska (from “Northern Exposure”); Brokeback Mountain (from Annie Proulx’s short story and Ang Lee’s film of the same name); and San Piedro Island, Washington (from the novel and film “Snow Falling on Cedars”). They note that they chose not to include Margaritaville. Why? Because it might have a hazardous pop top or two? For shame.
Related on World Hum:
* 10 Greatest Fictional Travlers
* How Did We Love Jack Kerouac This Week?
* Jimmy Buffett: Celebrating Changes in Latitudes
Interview With ‘The Unheard’ Author Josh Swiller
by Michael Yessis | 09.20.07 | 10:53 AM ET
Josh Swiller spoke with Scott Simon for NPR’s Weekend Edition, covering his hearing loss, his time as a Peace Corps volunteer in Zambia and his new book, “The Unheard: A Memoir of Deafness and Africa.” Frank Bures reviewed it for World Hum last week.
Postcard Stories From Geist Magazine
by Eva Holland | 09.19.07 | 1:41 PM ET
Geist Magazine recently sponsored its third annual Literal Literary Postcard Story Contest, in which entrants submit a postcard and, most importantly, an original very short story inspired by the card. It’s a great concept. Well, the magazine has now posted the winning entries. The six winners vary considerably in terms of their connection to the postcards (at least to a reader’s eye) but are all good reads with a strong sense of place. My favourite is Hardly At All by Ross Bragg, whose entry was based on the postcard pictured here.
‘On the Road’ at 50: Ferlinghetti, Kirn, Cassady Weigh In
by Michael Yessis | 09.06.07 | 10:53 AM ET
Slate joins the 50th Anniversary celebration of “On the Road” this week with coverage that, among other things, addresses this question: How did Sal Paradise, the protagonist of “On the Road” and the No. 1 pick in our list of 10 Greatest Fictional Travelers, influence Ryan Bingham, the main character in Walter Kirn’s “Up in the Air” and our No. 9 greatest fictional traveler? In an e-mail conversation with Meghan O’Rourke, Kirn points to his personal absorption in Kerouac’s classic.
Marking 50 Years of Jack Kerouac’s ‘On the Road’
by Jim Benning | 09.04.07 | 11:58 AM ET
Tomorrow is the official 50th birthday of Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road,” a novel that has inspired countless wanderings. We can’t limit our tribute to a single day, so we’ll be celebrating the book all week with Kerouac-related features and blog items. For starters, we present The Distance Between Then and Now, Bill Belleville’s reflection on a pivotal road trip of his own. Fans of Sal Paradise can see where we think Kerouac’s fictional stand-in ranks by checking out our recent list of the 10 Greatest Fictional Travelers.
Related on World Hum
* The Distance Between Then and Now
* 10 Greatest Fictional Travelers
