So Where Are the Travel Books?
Travel Blog • Jim Benning • 11.20.03 | 9:53 PM ET
The National Book Award winners were announced yesterday and, once again, no travel-related books were nominated or honored. Carlos Eire’s “Waiting for Snow in Havana,” which won in the non-fiction category, is a personal memoir that crosses cultural lines but certainly wouldn’t be shelved in a bookstore’s travel narrative section. In looking back at a list of National Book Award winners over the last 50 years, I came across two winning books occasionally found in the travel section: Peter Matthiessen’s “The Snow Leopard,” which won in the “contemporary thought” category in 1979 (the category no longer exists); and Barry Lopez’s “Arctic Dreams,” which won for non-fiction in 1986. I suspect both authors would cringe, however, if their books were referred to as “travel books.” If they had to choose, they’d probably describe them as books about nature or the environment. As others have pointed out, many of the most respected travel writers working today would prefer not to be called “travel writers,” afraid the label will doom them to a literary ghetto, or even worse, afraid their work will be lumped in with much of the travel writing that appears in newspapers and magazines. So when will travel books get their due? I’m not suggesting that a travel book necesssarily should have beat out “Waiting for Snow in Havana” or even made the list of finalists this year. But travel books are almost always overlooked for big literary prizes, year after year. I’m wondering when travel books as a whole will get more respect, or if they will ever get more respect. Any thoughts?
Email to friend
Twitter
del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Furl
Ma.gnolia
Mixx
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Yahoo! Buzz
Jim Benning is the editor and co-founder of World Hum.
