Bruce Chatwin

English novelist and travel writer. He won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel On the Black Hill (1982). Married and bisexual, he was one of the first prominent men in Britain known to have contracted HIV and died of AIDS, although he hid the facts of his illness.

Chatwin is admired for his spare, lapidary style and his innate story-telling abilities. However, he has also been criticised for his fictionalised anecdotes of real people, places, and events. Frequently, the people he wrote about recognised themselves and did not always appreciate his distortions of their culture and behaviour. Chatwin was philosophical about what he saw as an unavoidable dilemma, arguing that his portrayals were not intended to be faithful representations. As his biographer Nicholas Shakespeare argues: "He tells not a half truth, but a truth and a half".

Works:

  • In Patagonia (1977)
  • The Viceroy of Ouidah (1980)
  • On the Black Hill (1982)
  • The Songlines (1987)
  • Utz (1988)
  • What Am I Doing Here? (1988)
  • Photographs and Notebooks (1993)
  • Anatomy of Restlessness (1997)
  • Winding Paths (1998)

Contact information

  • Charles Bruce Chatwin