Bruce Chatwin Biography and latest books by Bruce Chatwin

Bruce Chatwin is regarded as one of UK’s best travel writers. He was born in Sheffield, England. His first home was his grandparents’ place in Dronfield. He lived his childhood in West Heath in Birmingham. He attended Marlborough College in Wiltshire. After college, he worked with Sotheby’s and became Sotheby’s expert on impressionist art and went on to become a director.

Chatwin decided to travel to Sudan and there he developed an interest in archaeology. On his return to the UK, he attended a course in archaeology at the University of Edinburgh. However he left it without a degree. He worked with the Sunday Times Magazine in its art and architecture section. Thereafter, he began to travel across the world writing about diverse topics: Algerian migrant workers, the Great Wall of China, and interviews with the legendary André Malraux (French statesman and writer), Nadezhda Yakovlevna Mandelstam (Russian poet), and Eileen Gray (Irish furniture designer, architect, and pioneer of the Modern Movement in Architecture). It is said that after a chat with Eileen Gray, he decided to go to Patagonia. In Patagonia was written thereafter. Penelope Betjeman, wife of poet John Betjeman introduced him to the borders of Wales and it resulted in Chatwin’s award-winning book, On the Black Hill.

Bruce Chatwin married Elizabeth Chanler, a descendant of John Jacob Astor, the first multi-millionaire from the US. Chatwin was a renowned socialite and he visited Patrick Leigh Fermor (England’s most-celebrated travel writer). After his death, his ashes were scattered near a Byzantine church in the Peloponnese in Greece. His most well-read books are On the Black Hill, In Patagonia, The Viceroy of Ouidah, The Songlines, Utz, What Am I Doing Here, Photographs and Notebooks, Anatomy of Restlessness, and Winding Paths.