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Travel literature
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Travel literature is travel writing of literary value. Travel literature typically records the experiences of an author touring a place for the pleasure of travel. An individual work is sometimes called a travelogue or itinerary. Travel literature may be cross-cultural or transnational in focus, or may involve travel to different regions within the same country. Accounts of spaceflight may also be considered travel literature.
Literary travelogues generally exhibit a coherent narrative or aesthetic beyond the logging of dates and events as found in travel diarys or a ship's log.
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Travel literature is travel writing of literary value. Travel literature typically records the experiences of an author touring a place for the pleasure of travel. An individual work is sometimes called a travelogue or itinerary. Travel literature may be cross-cultural or transnational in focus, or may involve travel to different regions within the same country. Accounts of spaceflight may also be considered travel literature.
Literary travelogues generally exhibit a coherent narrative or aesthetic beyond the logging of dates and events as found in travel diarys or a ship's log. Travel literature is closely associated with outdoor literature and the genres often overlap with no definite boundaries. Another sub-genre, dealing specifically with 20th and 21st century tourism, is the guide book.
Travelogues
The American William Least Heat-Moon, Welsh author Jan Morris and Englishman Eric Newby all made their livings writing travelogues, although Morris is also known as an historian and Theroux as a novelist. National Geographic Emerging Explorer and PEN award winning journalist Kira Salak first reached acclaim by traveling to the world's remotest locations and writing about them for National Geographic publications and travel books.
Travel literature often intersects with essay writing, as in V. S. Naipaul's India: A Wounded Civilization where a trip becomes the occasion for extended observations on a nation and people. This is similarly the case in Rebecca West's work on Yugoslavia, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon.
Travel and nature writing merges in many of the works by Sally Carrighar, Ivan T. Sanderson and Gerald Durrell. These authors are naturalists who write in support of their fields of study. Charles Darwin wrote his famous account of the journey of HMS Beagle at the intersection of science, natural history and travel.
Literary travel writing also occurs when an author, famous in another field, travels and writes about his or her experiences. Examples of such writers are Samuel Johnson, Charles Dickens, Robert Louis Stevenson, Hilaire Belloc, D. H. Lawrence, Rebecca West, John Steinbeck and Evelyn Waugh.
Fiction
Fictional travelogues make up a large proportion of travel literature. Although it may be desirable in some contexts to distinguish fictional from non-fictional works, such distinctions have proved notoriously difficult to make in practice, as in the famous instance of the travel writings of Marco Polo or John Mandeville. Many "fictional" works of travel literature are based on factual journeys – Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness), presumably Homer's Odyssey (c. 8th cent. BCE) – while other works, though based on imaginary and even highly fantastic journeys – Dante's Divine Comedy, Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, or Voltaire's Candide, Samuel Johnson's Rasselas – nevertheless contain factual elements.
One prominent contemporary example of a real life journey transformed into a work of fiction is travel writer Kira Salak's novel The White Mary, which takes place in Papua New Guinea and the Congo and is largely based on her own experiences in those countries.
Travel literature in criticism
The systematic study of travel literature emerged as a legitimate field of scholarly inquiry in the mid-1990s, with its own conferences, organizations, journals, monographs, anthologies, and encyclopedias. Among the most important pre-1995 monographs are: Abroad (1980) by Paul Fussell, an exploration of British interwar travel writing as escapism; Gone Primitive: Modern Intellects, Savage Minds (1990) by Marianna Torgovnick, an inquiry into the primitivist presentation of foreign cultures; Haunted Journeys: Desire and Transgression in European Travel Writing (1991) by Dennis Porter, a close look at the psychological correlatives of travel; Discourses of Difference: An Analysis of Women’s Travel Writing by Sara Mills, an inquiry into the intersection of gender and colonialism during the nineteenth century; Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (1992), Mary Louise Pratt's influential study of Victorian travel writing’s dissemination of a colonial mind-set; and Belated Travelers (1994) an analysis of colonial anxiety by Ali Behdad.
The study of travel writing developed most extensively in the late 1990s, encouraged by the currency of Foucauldian criticism and Edward Said's postcolonial landmark study Orientalism. This growing interdisciplinary preoccupation with cultural diversity, globalization, and migration is expressed in other fields of literary study, most notably Comparative Literature. The first international travel writing conference, “Snapshots from Abroad,” organized by Donald Ross at the University of Minnesota in 1997, attracted over one hundred scholars and led to the foundation of the International Society of Travel and Travel Writing (ISTW). The first issue of Studies in Travel Writing was published the same year, edited by Tim Youngs. Annual scholarly conferences about travel writing, held in the USA, Europe, and Asia saw an unprecedented upswing in the number of published travel literature monographs and essay collections, as well as a proliferation of travel writing anthologies.
Major directions in recent travel writing scholarship include: studies about the role of gender in travel and travel writing (e.g. Women Travelers in Colonial India: The Power of the Female Gaze [1998] by Indira Ghose); explorations of the political functions of travel (e.g. Radicals on the Road: The Politics of English Travel Writing in the 1930s [2001] by Bernard Schweizer); postcolonial perspectives on travel (e.g. English Travel Writing: From Pilgrimages to Postcolonial Explorations (2000) by Barbara Korte); and studies about the function of language in travel and travel writing (e.g. Across the Lines: Travel, Language, and Translation [2000] by Michael Cronin). Tim Youngs is a driving force behind the growth of the field, notably through the journal Studies in Travel Writing, through his two co-edited volumes of essays on travel writing, Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing (2002), co-edited with T. Hulme, and Perspectives in Travel Writing (2004), co-edited with G. Hooper; Youngs also co-organized the 2005 travel writing conference, “Mobilis in Mobile,” in Hong Kong. Kristi Siegel is another prolific editor of travel writing scholarship, having edited Issues in Travel Writing: Empire, Spectacle and Displacement (2002) as well as Gender, Genre, and Identity in Women’s Travel Writing (2004).
Notable travel writers and travel literature
See outdoor literature for adventure/exploration/nature literature.
- Pausanias (Second century CE)
- Description of Greece
- Nasir Khusraw, Persian traveler in the Middle East (1008-1088)
- Safarnama
- Abu ad-Din al-Husayn Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Jubayr (1145–1214)
- Marco Polo Venetian traveller to Catai in the 13th century
- Il Milione
- Ibn Battuta, a Moroccan world traveler in the 14th century
- Rihla, literally entitled "A Gift to Those Who Contemplate the Wonders of Cities and the Marvels of Traveling"
- Richard Hakluyt (c. 1552–1616):
- The Principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation (1589) — A foundational text of the travel literature genre
- François de La Boullaye-Le Gouz (1623–1668):
- Les voyages et observations du sieur de La Boullaye Le gouz (1653 & 1657) — One of the very first true travel books.
- Evliya Çelebi, (1610-1683)
- Seyahatname
- Matsuo Basho (1644–1694)
- The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches
- Samuel Johnson (1709–1784):
- A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775) — The lexicographer and his friend James Boswell (1740–1795) visit Scotland in 1773.
- Laurence Sterne (1713–1768):
- A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy (1768).
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1743–1832):
- Italienische Reise (1816/17).
- Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797):
- A Short Residence in Sweden, 1796
- Johann Gottfried Seume (1763–1810):
- Spaziergang nach Syrakus, 1803
- Jippensha Ikku (1765–1831)
- Tokaidochu Hizakurige (The Shank's Mare) - one of the most famous of the Edo period michiyuki (journey) novels
- Heinrich Heine (1797–1856)
- Reisebilder (1826-33), Harzreise (1853)
- al-Tahtawi, Egyptian traveler to France
- Takhlis al-Ibriz fi Talkhis Bariz (1834)
- Karl Baedeker (1801–1859)
- Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)
- Charles Dickens (1812–1870):
- American Notes (1842).
- Pictures from Italy (1844–1845).
- Herman Melville (1819–1891):
- Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life (1846).
- Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas (1847) — Chronicles of Melville's experiences as a sailor in Polynesia.
- Fran Levstik (1831–1887):
- Popotovanje od Litije do Cateža (1858) — A journey from Litija to Catež that includes a very influential Slovenian literary programme.
- Mark Twain (1835–1910)
- Octave Mirbeau (1848–1917)
- La 628-E8 (1908)
- Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894):
- Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes (1879).
- The Silverado Squatters (1883).
- Mary Kingsley "Travels in West Africa"
- Norman Douglas (1868–1962):
- Old Calabria (1915).
- Ernest Peixotto (1869–1940):
- Our Hispanic Southwest (1916) — Contains the first usage of the ethnic slur "spic"
- Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953):
- The Path To Rome (1902) — A ramble by foot from central France to Rome in 1901.
- Yone Noguchi (1875–1947)
- The American Diary of a Japanese Girl (1903)
- W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965):
- On a Chinese Screen (1922) — Vignettes of China in the '30s from the master of the short story.
- D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930):
- Sea and Sardinia (1921).
- Henry Vollam Morton (1892–1979)
- Rebecca West (1892–1983):
- Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1941) — A 1,181-page look at Yugoslavia in 1937 by the pro-Serb West and a fascinating, if less than objective, account of this land before the tragedies of World War II and the 1990s wars.
- Thomas Raucat (1894–1976)
- L'honorable partie de campagne ("The honorable picnic", 1924)
- De Shang-Haï à Canton ("From Shanghai to Canton", 1927)
- J. Slauerhoff (1898–1936)
- Alleen de havens zijn ons trouw ("Only the Ports Are Loyal to Us", 1992 [1927–1932])
- Gordon Sinclair (1900–1984):
- Khyber Caravan: Through Kashmir, Waziristan, Afghanistan, Baluchistan and Northern India (1936) — A somewhat curmudgeonly account of 1934 travels in British India by a later famous Canadian journalist and television personality.
- Richard Halliburton (1900–1939), one of the most famous explorers and adventure writers of his generation:
- The Royal Road to Romance, The Flying Carpet, New Worlds to Conquer, The Glorious Adventure, Seven League Boots
- John Steinbeck (1902–1968):
- Travels With Charley: In Search of America (1962) — An American road book describing Steinbeck's journeys with his poodle, Charley.
- Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966):
- Waugh Abroad: Collected Travel Writing — An account of the English novelist's restless wanderings around the world in the 1930s and later.
- Robert Byron (1905–1941):
- The Road to Oxiana (1937) — travels in Persia and Afghanistan
- Laurens van der Post (1906–1996):
- The Lost World of the Kalahari (1958) — Auberon Waugh (1939–2001) described van der Post as the person in whose company he'd most like to spend an evening. This book by the South African soldier/explorer/writer suggests why.
- Wilfred Thesiger (1910–2003)
- Lawrence Durrell (1912–1990):
- Prospero's Cell: A Guide to the Landscape and Manners of the Island of Corcyra (1945) — This text describes Durrell's time in Corfu. It should be read in tandem with his brother Gerald's My Family and Other Animals.
- Reflections on a Marine Venus (1953) — Durrell's experiences in Rhodes.
- Bitter Lemons (1957) — Durrell in Cyprus.
- Heinrich Harrer (1912–2006)
- Gavin Maxwell (1914–1969)
- Patrick Leigh Fermor (b. 1915):
- A Time Of Gifts (1977) — A journey by an 18 year old in 1933/4 overland from the Hook of Holland to Hungary, rewritten in old age from long lost notes.
- Camilo José Cela (1916–2002):
- Viaje a la Alcarria (1948).
- Eric Newby (1919–2006):
- A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush (1958) — Popular English travel writer.
- Lucjan Wolanowski (1920–2006):
- Post to Never-Never Land (Poland, 1968); reports from Australia;
- Heat and fever (Poland, 1970); reports from the work in World Health Organization Information department in Geneva, travels in New Delhi, Bangkok and Manila 1967-1968.
- Jack Kerouac (1922–1969):
- On the Road (1957)
- Dharma Bums (1958)
- Gerald Durrell (1925–1995):
- My Family and Other Animals (1956) — A description of an idyllic childhood on Corfu in the 1930s by the brother of Lawrence Durrell (1912–1990). This text combines natural observations, humour, storytelling, and travel.
- Fillets of Plaice (1971).
- Jan Morris (b. 1926):
- Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere (2001) — Author of many works, especially about cities.
- Juan Goytisolo (b. 1931)
- Ted Simon (b. 1932):
- Jupiter's Travels (1979)
- Ryszard Kapuscinski (1932–2007)
- Another Day of Life (1976)
- The Soccer War (1978)
- The Emperor: Downfall of an Autocrat (1978)
- Shah of Shahs (1982)
- Imperium (1993)
- The Shadow of the Sun (2001)
- Cees Nooteboom (b. 1933)
- Berlijnse Notities (1990)
- Roads to Santiago (1992)
- Nootebooms Hotel (2002) — Dutch travel writer.
- Barbara Grizzuti Harrison (1934–2002)
- Venedikt Erofeev (1938–1990):
- Moskva–P?tushki (1973) — A Russian tale of alcohol, love, and a train ride; translated into English as Moscow to the End of the Line.
- Peter Mayle (b. 1939)
- Colin Thubron (b. 1939)
- Bruce Chatwin (1940–1989):
- In Patagonia (1977).
- The Songlines (1987) — An English stylist of the 20th century.
- William Least Heat-Moon (b. 1940):
- Blue Highways: A Journey into America (1982) — An American Classic by an author well known for travel writing.
- Frances Mayes (b. 1940):
- Under the Tuscan Sun (1996) — A memoir of buying, renovating, and living in an abandoned villa in rural Tuscany in Italy.
- Paul Theroux (b. 1941):
- The Great Railway Bazaar (1975) — Perhaps Theroux's most popular travel work.
- Jonathan Raban (b. 1942)
- Michael Palin (b. 1943)
- Julian Barnes (b. 1946)
- Tom Miller (b. 1947)
- Best Travel Writing 2005, introduction, pp. xvii-xxi, (2005)
- A Sense of Place: Great Travel Writers Talk About Their Craft, Lives, and Inspiration, (2004) pp. 325-343.
- Writing on the Edge: A Borderlands Reader, (ed) (2003)
- Travelers' Tales -- Cuba, (ed) (2001)
- Jack Ruby's Kitchen Sink: Offbeat Travels Through America's Southwest, (2000)
- Trading With the Enemy: A Yankee Travels Through Castro's Cuba, (1992)
- The Panama Hat Trail: A Journey From South America, (1986)
- Arizona: The Land and the People, (ed) (1986)
- On the Border: Portraits of America's Southwestern Frontier, (1981)
- Sasaki Mikirô (b. 1947), Japanese
- Chris Stewart (b. 1950)
- Driving Over Lemons: An Optimist in Andalucia (1999)
- A Parrot in the Pepper Tree (2002)
- The Almond Blossom Appreciation Society (2007)
- Bill Bryson (b. 1951):
- The Palace Under the Alps (1985) — An early work that is more of a travel guide than a narrative.
- Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe (1992)
- Notes from a Small Island (1995) — Travels in the United Kingdom.
- A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail (1999)
- In a Sunburned Country (2001)
- Vikram Seth (b. 1952):
- From Heaven Lake: Travels Through Sinkiang and Tibet (1983)
- Quim Monzó (b. 1952)
- Kenn Kaufman (b. 1954}:
- Paul Bowles (1910–1999)
- The Sheltering Sky
- Kingbird Highway (2000)
- Rory Maclean (b. 1954):
- Stalin’s Nose (1992)
- The Oatmeal Ark (1997)
- Under the Dragon (1998)
- Next Exit Magic Kingdom (2000)
- Falling for Icarus (2004)
- Magic Bus (2006)
- Paul Ruffino (b. 1956)
- Pico Iyer (b. 1957):
- Video Night in Kathmandu: And Other Reports from the Not-so-Far East (1988),
- Falling off the Map: Some Lonely Places of the World (1993)
- Tropical Classical: Essays from Several Directions (1997),
- Global Soul: Jet Lag, Shopping Malls, and the Search for Home (2000) — Three excellent collections of essays on the postmodern experience of travel.
- Tony Horwitz (b. 1959):
- One for the Road: An Outback Adventure (1987)
- Baghdad without a Map and Other Misadventures in Arabia (1991)
- Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War (1998)
- Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before (2002)
- A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World (2008)
- Jeffrey Tayler (b. 1962)
- Siberian Dawn: A Journey Across the New Russia (1999)
- Facing the Congo: A Modern-Day Journey into the Heart of Darkness (2000)
- Glory in a Camel's Eye: Trekking Through the Moroccan Sahara (2003)
- Angry Wind: Through Muslim Black Africa by Truck, Bus, Boat, and Camel (2005)
- River of No Reprieve: Descending Siberia's Waterway of Exile, Death, and Destiny (2006)
- Karl Taro Greenfeld (b. 1964):
- Speed Tribes: Days and Nights with Japan's Next Generation (1995),
- Standard Deviations: Growing Up and Coming Down in the New Asia — An exploration of the traveler/backpacker subcultures in the Far East during the 1990s by a writer who was there.
- Christopher Gudgeon (b. 1964):
- Mingling Among The Mongols (1984),
- Tahir Shah (b. 1966):
- Sorcerer's Apprentice
- In Search of King Solomon's Mines
- Trail of Feathers
- The Caliph's House
- In Arabian Nights
- House of the Tiger King
- Beyond the Devil's Teeth
- J. Maarten Troost (b. 1969):
- The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific (2004),
- Getting Stoned with Savages: A Trip Through the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu (2006)
- Gary Arndt (b. 1969):
- (2007-2008)
- Cleo Paskal
- Kira Salak (b. 1971); Salak is considered a notable women adventure writer of modern times
- Four Corners: A Journey into the Heart of Papua New Guinea (2001) — a classic adventure travel account
- The Cruelest Journey: 600 Miles to Timbuktu (2004)— an intrepid physical and spiritual journey
- The White Mary (2008)— a novel that is largely based on her real-life adventures in Papua New Guinea and the Congo
- Tom Bissell (b. 1974)
- Chasing the Sea: Lost Among the Ghosts of Empire in Central Asia (2003)
- Peter Aufschnaiter
- Eight Years in Tibet
- Hannue has travelled across over 70 countries
See also
External links
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