Bruce Chatwin facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Bruce Chatwin
FRSL
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Chatwin, photographed by Lord Snowdon, in 1982
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| Born | Charles Bruce Chatwin 13 May 1940 Sheffield, West Riding of Yorkshire, England |
| Died | 18 January 1989 (aged 48) Nice, Alpes-Maritimes, France |
| Resting place | Agios Nikolaos, Messenia, Greece |
| Occupation |
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| Education | Marlborough College |
| Alma mater | University of Edinburgh |
| Period | 1977–1989 |
| Genre | Travel writing, fiction |
| Subject | Nomadism |
| Spouse |
Elizabeth Chanler
(m. 1965) |
Charles Bruce Chatwin FRSL (13 May 1940 – 18 January 1989) was an English writer known for his travel books and novels. He was also a journalist. His first book, In Patagonia (1977), made him famous as a travel writer. However, he saw himself more as a storyteller who liked to share unusual tales.
Chatwin won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel On the Black Hill (1982). His novel Utz (1988) was even considered for the important Booker Prize. In 2008, The Times newspaper listed Chatwin as one of the "50 Greatest British Writers Since 1945."
Chatwin was born in Sheffield, England. After finishing school at Marlborough College, he started working at Sotheby's in London at age 18. There, he learned a lot about art. He became an expert in old artworks and Impressionist paintings. In 1966, he left Sotheby's to study archaeology at the University of Edinburgh. But he left after two years to become a writer.
The Sunday Times Magazine hired Chatwin in 1972. He traveled the world for his job. He interviewed important people like the politician Indira Gandhi. In 1974, he left the magazine to visit Patagonia, Argentina. This trip inspired his first book, In Patagonia (1977). He wrote five more books, including The Songlines (1987), which was about Australia and became a bestseller. Many people say his work helped make travel writing popular again. His books influenced other writers too.
Contents
Bruce Chatwin's Life Story
Growing Up and Early Adventures
Bruce Chatwin was born on 13 May 1940 in Sheffield, England. His father, Charles Leslie Chatwin, was a lawyer and a naval officer during World War II. His mother, Margharita, came from Sheffield. The Chatwin family was well-known in Birmingham, where his grandfather was a famous architect.
During the war, Bruce and his mother moved often. His father was away at sea. Margharita wanted to keep Bruce safe from bombings. They stayed with different relatives. Bruce remembered his "home" as a black suitcase. It held his clothes and his Mickey Mouse gas mask.
While staying with his grandparents, Bruce was fascinated by their "curiosity cabinet." It had many interesting items. One was a piece of what they thought was a "brontosaurus." It was actually from a giant sloth found in Patagonia. This strange piece of skin later inspired Chatwin to visit and write about Patagonia.
After the war, Chatwin lived with his parents and younger brother Hugh in Birmingham. When he was seven, he went to boarding school. He attended Old Hall School and then Marlborough College. He wasn't a top student, but he was good in school plays. He studied Latin, Greek, and Ancient History.
Chatwin wanted to study Classics at Merton College, Oxford. But it was hard to get into universities then. His parents didn't like his ideas of acting or working in Kenya. Instead, his father helped him get a job at Sotheby's, a famous auction house.
Working with Art and Traveling the World
In 1958, Chatwin moved to London to work at Sotheby's. He started as a porter, dusting old art. Soon, he became a junior cataloguer. He worked with Antiquities (very old objects) and Impressionist Art (a style of painting). This job helped him learn a lot about art. He became very good at spotting fake artworks. He also learned to describe objects clearly and briefly.
Chatwin quickly became an expert at Sotheby's. He eventually led the Antiquities and Impressionist art departments. Many thought he would become the head of the auction house.
During this time, Chatwin traveled a lot for work and for fun. He found British society a bit too strict. Traveling offered him freedom. He admired the writer Robert Byron and his book The Road to Oxiana. Chatwin traveled to Afghanistan twice. He also bought antiques on his trips and resold them for profit. He made friends with artists and art collectors.
By the mid-1960s, Chatwin grew unhappy at Sotheby's. He felt tired of the job. He said it was like working for a "superior funeral parlour." He also had problems with his eyesight. An eye doctor suggested he take a break. In 1965, Chatwin went to Sudan in East Africa. There, he met a nomadic tribe. Their way of life, always moving, fascinated him. He would be interested in nomads for the rest of his life.
When he returned, Chatwin surprised his friends by proposing to Elizabeth Chanler. She was an American who also worked at Sotheby's. They married on 21 August 1965. They hoped to have children, but they did not.
In April 1966, Chatwin became a director at Sotheby's. But he was a junior director and couldn't vote on important decisions. This, along with feeling bored and worried about some deals happening at Sotheby's, led him to quit in June 1966.
In October 1966, Chatwin started studying Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh. He had always wanted to go to university. He won a prize for his first year's work. But he found the studies too strict and left after two years without a degree.
Becoming a Writer
After leaving Edinburgh, Chatwin decided to become a writer. He proposed a book about nomads to a publisher. He called it The Nomadic Alternative. He wanted to answer: "Why do men wander rather than stand still?" But the publisher didn't like the book.
Between 1969 and 1972, while working on his nomad book, Chatwin traveled widely. He helped organize an art exhibit in New York City. He wrote articles about nomads for magazines like Vogue. He even tried making a documentary film about nomads in Niger, but it was lost.
Chatwin also took many photos of his travels. He tried to sell photos from a trip to Mauritania to The Sunday Times Magazine. They didn't buy the photos, but they offered him a job.
The Sunday Times Magazine and In Patagonia
In 1972, The Sunday Times Magazine hired Chatwin as an art and architecture adviser. His job was to suggest story ideas. His editor, Francis Wyndham, encouraged him to write. This helped him improve his storytelling. Chatwin traveled for many international assignments. He wrote about topics like the Great Wall of China. He interviewed famous people like André Malraux.
In 1972, Chatwin interviewed a 93-year-old architect named Eileen Gray in Paris. He saw a map she had painted of Patagonia in South America. "I've always wanted to go there," Chatwin told her. "So have I," she replied, "Go there for me."
Two years later, in November 1974, Chatwin flew to Peru and then to Patagonia, Argentina. He later said he sent a short message to his editor: "Have gone to Patagonia." He actually sent a letter saying he was working on a story he always wanted to write. This was the end of his regular job at The Sunday Times Magazine.
Chatwin spent six months in Patagonia. He traveled around, collecting stories of people who had moved there from other places. This trip led to his famous book In Patagonia (1977). He used his search for his own "piece of brontosaurus" (the one from his grandparents' cabinet was gone) to frame his travel story. Chatwin said the book was about a real journey and a symbolic one. He said the narrator goes to a faraway country to find a strange animal. Along the way, he meets interesting people and hears unusual stories.
In Patagonia included fifteen black and white photos taken by Chatwin. The book made Chatwin famous as a travel writer. One of his biographers called it "one of the most strikingly original post-war English travel books." He said it brought new life to travel writing. However, some people in Patagonia said that parts of Chatwin's book were not completely true. This was the first time his stories were questioned.
For In Patagonia, Chatwin won the Hawthornden Prize and the E. M. Forster Award. Famous writers like Graham Greene praised the book. Because of its success, Chatwin became friends with well-known people like Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
The Viceroy of Ouidah and On the Black Hill
When Chatwin returned from Patagonia, his job at The Sunday Times Magazine had changed. His next project was meant to be a book about Francisco Félix de Sousa. He was a 19th-century figure who became a leader in Dahomey (now Benin). Chatwin had heard about him in 1972. He went back to Benin in 1976 to do research. In January 1977, during a coup attempt, Chatwin was held for three days. He later wrote about this experience.
After being released, Chatwin left Benin and went to Brazil to continue his research. But he couldn't find enough facts about de Sousa. So, Chatwin decided to write a fictional story about him instead. This book, The Viceroy of Ouidah, was published in 1980. The film Cobra Verde (1987) is based on it.
Although The Viceroy of Ouidah received good reviews, it didn't sell many copies. Chatwin then decided to write about something completely different. He wanted to write about people who "never went out." His next book, On the Black Hill (1982), is a novel about twin brothers. They live their whole lives on a farm near the Welsh border. For this book, Chatwin won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. It was also made into a film in 1987.
The Songlines and Later Works
In 1983, Chatwin returned to his interest in nomads. He decided to focus on Aboriginal Australians. He was interested in their "songlines" or "dreaming tracks." Each songline is a personal story. It acts like a creation story and a map. Chatwin thought songlines could explain why humans need to wander. He believed this urge was part of our genes.
However, Chatwin found it hard to fully understand the songlines. He spent only a few weeks in Australia in 1983 and 1984. He mostly got information from non-Aboriginal people. He couldn't speak the Aboriginal languages. He also upset some people involved in the Land Rights movement because he didn't fully understand the local politics.
While in Australia, Chatwin started having some health problems. He also learned about a new illness called AIDS. This worried him and made him want to finish his book. His friend, the novelist Salman Rushdie, said that the book was a huge challenge for Chatwin. He felt that Chatwin's illness helped him finally finish it.
The Songlines (1987) features a narrator named Bruce, whose life is very similar to Chatwin's. The narrator tries to learn about Aboriginal culture and songlines. As the book goes on, it becomes a deep thought about "the nature of human restlessness." Chatwin also included parts from his notebooks. He wanted to write down his ideas and interesting stories.
The Songlines became a bestseller in the UK and the US. It was nominated for a travel award, but Chatwin asked for it to be removed. He said the book was fictional. After it was published, Chatwin became friends with the composer Kevin Volans. Volans was inspired to create an opera based on the book.
Final Years and Legacy
Between 1983 and 1986, while writing The Songlines, Chatwin often felt sick. He also had skin problems. After finishing the book in August 1986, he collapsed in Switzerland. There, doctors found he had HIV.
Chatwin's case was unusual because he had a rare fungal infection. At the time, doctors didn't know much about HIV and AIDS. Chatwin told most people he had this rare fungus. He never publicly said he had HIV because of the negative feelings about it then.
Even while ill, Chatwin kept writing. His wife, Elizabeth, encouraged him to use an old letter he wrote from Prague as an idea for a new story. This led to his novel Utz (1988). The book was about people's strong desire to collect things. It was set in Prague and told the story of Kaspar Utz, who loved his collection of Meissen porcelain. Utz was well-liked and was considered for the Booker Prize.
Chatwin also put together a collection of his articles, called What Am I Doing Here (1989). When he died in 1989, he was working on new ideas for novels.
Bruce Chatwin died in a hospital in Nice, France, on 18 January 1989. A memorial service was held in London. Many friends, including Salman Rushdie, attended.
In 1985, while sick, Chatwin visited Mount Athos, a holy place in Greece. This visit deeply affected him. He decided to become an Orthodox Christian. His ashes were scattered near a chapel in Greece, close to the home of his friend and mentor, writer Patrick Leigh Fermor.
Chatwin's papers, including 85 notebooks, were given to the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Two collections of his photos and notes were published after his death.
News of Chatwin's HIV diagnosis became known in 1988. After his death, some people criticized him for not revealing his illness. They felt he could have helped raise awareness about AIDS. However, in 2008, The Times still ranked Chatwin as one of the "50 Greatest British Writers Since 1945."
Chatwin's Writing Style
John Updike, another writer, described Chatwin's writing as "clipped" and "lapidary." This means it was very precise and packed a lot of meaning into a few words. One of his editors said his writing was both simple and exciting.
Chatwin's time working at Sotheby's helped shape his writing. He spent years describing objects clearly and vividly to attract buyers. His interest in nomads also influenced him. He admired their simple way of life and tried to make his own life and writing free of unnecessary things.
Chatwin liked to try new ways of writing. For In Patagonia, he described its structure as "Cubist." This meant it had many small pictures that came together to form a unique portrait of Patagonia. The Songlines was another experiment. It starts as a novel but then becomes a collection of quotes and stories. He used this to explore human restlessness. Some critics liked this new approach, while others did not.
Many writers from the 19th and 20th centuries influenced Chatwin. He tried to write like Robert Byron when he first started. While in Patagonia, he read In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway. He liked Hemingway's simple writing. Chatwin also admired the photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson and tried to write like he took "quick snapshots of ordinary people." Later, he studied French authors like Honoré de Balzac and Gustave Flaubert.
Main Ideas in Chatwin's Books
Chatwin explored several big ideas in his work. These included human restlessness and wandering, borders and being an outsider, and art and objects.
He believed that human restlessness was the most important topic in his writing. He wanted to understand why people feel the need to wander. He thought humans were meant to move around. When they settled down, he believed their natural urges turned into things like violence or wanting too much. In his first book idea, The Nomadic Alternative, he tried to explain nomadic culture. He wanted to find out: "Why do men wander rather than sit still?" He admitted that this question was personal for him.
Even though The Nomadic Alternative wasn't published, Chatwin kept exploring restlessness in his later books. One writer said Chatwin's works could be grouped into "restlessness defined" and "restlessness explained." Many of his books describe restlessness, like the twin in On the Black Hill who wants to leave home. Another example is the main character in Utz, who feels restless to visit Vichy every year but always returns to Prague. Chatwin tried to explain restlessness in The Songlines, which focused on the Aboriginal Australians' walkabout.
Borders were another important theme for Chatwin. His wife said he was interested in places "where things were always changing." Patagonia, his first book's subject, is a region in both Argentina and Chile. The main character in The Viceroy of Ouidah is a Brazilian who trades in Dahomey. On the Black Hills takes place on the border between Wales and England. In The Songlines, the main character meets people who connect the Aboriginal and white Australian worlds. The character in Utz travels between different countries.
Being an "exile" or living on the "margins" was also a key theme. This meant people who were forced to leave their homes or felt out of place. Some characters in In Patagonia were actual exiles. The main characters in On the Black Hill were not exiles, but they lived apart from the big events of their time. Similarly, Utz in the novel is "trapped in a society whose values are not his own."
Chatwin also wrote about art and objects. In his early articles, he wrote about art and artists. These were later collected in What Am I Doing Here. The novel Utz focuses on how owning art (porcelain figures) affects a collector. Utz wouldn't give up his collection, which kept him in Czechoslovakia. Chatwin himself struggled between wanting beautiful things and wanting to live simply. Some of his last writings were about the art world. He shared advice from Noël Coward: "Never let anything artistic stand in your way." Chatwin said he always followed this advice.
Chatwin's Impact on Others
When In Patagonia was published, Chatwin made travel writing exciting again. His clear and vivid writing, combined with his international focus, made him stand out. He was also good-looking, which added to his image as a daring traveler and made him a celebrity. Younger writers felt he made travel writing "cool."
Chatwin's books also inspired many readers to visit Patagonia and Australia. Patagonia saw more tourists, often carrying a copy of In Patagonia. The Songlines also made people travel to Australia.
Beyond travel, Chatwin influenced other writers. His biographer said that part of Chatwin's impact came from how hard it was to put his work into one category. This helped "set free other writers" from traditional writing rules. He didn't call himself a travel writer or a novelist. He preferred to call his writings "stories" or "searches." He liked to ask big questions about human life and share unusual tales.
After His Death
After Chatwin died, his books became very popular. By 1998, a million copies of his books had been sold. However, his reputation changed when more was revealed about his life and when questions arose about how accurate his stories were.
The accuracy problem had started before his death. Chatwin admitted to "counting up the lies" in In Patagonia, though he said there weren't many. His biographer found that most of these were small additions to the truth, not complete inventions. When asked about the difference between fact and fiction, Chatwin said, "I don't think there is [a division]."
Some people Chatwin wrote about in In Patagonia were unhappy with how he described them. But one farmer in the book felt Chatwin's descriptions were truthful. He said, "No one likes looking at their own passport photograph, but I found it accurate. It's not flattering, but it's the truth."
Chatwin's bestseller, The Songlines, has also faced criticism. Some say his view was "colonialist" because he mostly relied on white Australians for information about Aboriginal culture. Other researchers who spent years studying Aboriginal culture sometimes dismiss his work because he visited Australia only briefly. However, some, like writer Thomas Keneally, believe The Songlines should be widely read in Australia.
Questions about the truthfulness of Chatwin's writing grew after his death. Once it became known that he had died of an AIDS-related illness, some critics saw him as a liar and dismissed his work. His biographer said that his denial of his illness made people think that if he lied about his life, he must have lied about his work. However, some still consider him a great writer. In 2008, The Times ranked Chatwin as number 46 on their list of "50 Greatest British Writers Since 1945."
Lasting Impact
Chatwin's name is now used to sell Moleskine notebooks. In The Songlines, Chatwin wrote about small black, oilskin-covered notebooks he bought in Paris. He called them "moleskines." He was sad when the last company making them closed. In 1995, someone read The Songlines and suggested making moleskine notebooks. In 1997, a company started selling them and used Chatwin's name to promote them.
In 2014, the clothing brand Burberry created a clothing line inspired by Chatwin's books. The next year, Burberry released special editions of Chatwin's books with unique covers.
In September 2019, a documentary film called Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin, made by Werner Herzog, was shown by the BBC.
Bruce Chatwin's Books
- In Patagonia (1977)
- The Viceroy of Ouidah (1980)
- On the Black Hill (1982)
- Patagonia Revisited, with Paul Theroux (1985)
- The Songlines (1987)
- Utz (1988)
- What Am I Doing Here (1989)
Books Published After His Death
- Photographs and Notebooks (1993)
- Anatomy of Restlessness (1997)
- Winding Paths (1998)
- Under the Sun: The Letters of Bruce Chatwin (2012)
Documentaries About Bruce Chatwin
- Paul Yule, In The Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin (1999)
- Werner Herzog, Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin (2019)
Images for kids
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Chatwin, photographed by Lord Snowdon, in 1982
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The southern part of the Grwyne Fechan valley in the Black Mountains, Welsh Borders
See also
In Spanish: Bruce Chatwin para niños
