Charles Bruce Chatwin FRSL (13 May 1940 – 18 January 1989) was an English writer, novelist, and journalist. His first book, In Patagonia (1977), helped make him famous as a travel writer, even though he thought of himself as a storyteller, interested in sharing unusual stories. He won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel On the Black Hill (1982), and his novel Utz (1988) was nominated for the Booker Prize. In 2008, The Times ranked Chatwin as number 46 on their list of "50 Greatest British Writers Since 1945."

Chatwin was born in Sheffield. After finishing school at Marlborough College, he began working at the age of 18 at Sotheby’s in London, where he learned a lot about art and later managed the auction house’s Antiquities and Impressionist Art departments. In 1966, he left Sotheby’s to study archaeology at the University of Edinburgh but stopped his studies after two years to become a writer.

In 1972, The Sunday Times Magazine hired Chatwin. He traveled around the world for his work and interviewed people like politicians Indira Gandhi and André Malraux. He left the magazine in 1974 to visit Argentina and Chile, a trip that inspired his first book, In Patagonia (1977). He wrote five other books, including The Songlines (1987), which is about Aboriginal Australians and became a bestseller. Chatwin was diagnosed with HIV/AIDS near the end of his life, which led to poor health until his death in 1989.

His work is credited with helping to revive the travel writing genre. His books influenced other writers, including William Dalrymple, Claudio Magris, Philip Marsden, Luis Sepúlveda, Rich Cohen, and Rory Stewart.

Life

Chatwin was born on May 13, 1940, at the Shearwood Road Nursing Home in Sheffield, England. His father was Charles Leslie Chatwin, a lawyer and officer in the Royal Naval Reserve during World War II. His mother was Margharita (née Turnell), the daughter of a clerk who worked for a knife manufacturer in Sheffield. She was born in Sheffield and worked for the local Conservative party before getting married. The Chatwin family was well known in Birmingham, where Charles Chatwin’s grandfather, Julius Alfred Chatwin, was a famous architect.

Chatwin’s early life involved frequent moves with his mother while his father was away at sea. Before Chatwin was born, his parents lived in Barnt Green, Worcestershire. Shortly before giving birth, Margharita moved to her parents’ home in Dronfield, near Sheffield. She and her son stayed there for a few weeks. Because of the dangers of The Blitz, Margharita searched for safer places to live. She and Chatwin traveled to stay with relatives during the war, moving whenever she felt unsafe or when family conflicts arose. Later in life, Chatwin remembered the war as a time when their “home” was a black suitcase called the Rev-Robe, which held his clothes and a Mickey Mouse gas mask.

During one of their stays, Chatwin lived with his paternal grandparents, who had a curiosity cabinet filled with unusual items. One item was a piece of skin from a giant sloth, which the family mistakenly called a “piece of brontosaurus.” The skin was later lost, but it inspired Chatwin to write about Patagonia many years later.

After the war, Chatwin lived with his parents and younger brother, Hugh, in West Heath, Birmingham, where his father had a law practice. At age seven, Chatwin was sent to a boarding school in Shropshire, then to Marlborough College in Wiltshire. He was not an outstanding student but gained attention for his performances in school plays. While at Marlborough, he earned A-levels in Latin, Greek, and Ancient History.

Chatwin wanted to study Classics at Oxford University but had to consider other options because more people were competing for university spots after the end of National Service. His parents did not support his ideas to become an actor or work in Kenya’s Colonial Service. Instead, his father asked a client to write a letter of introduction to Sotheby’s, an auction house. Chatwin got a job there.

In 1958, Chatwin moved to London to work as a porter in the Works of Art department at Sotheby’s. He struggled with the job, which involved cleaning stored objects. Sotheby’s later moved him to a junior cataloguer position, where he worked in the Antiquities and Impressionist Art departments. This job helped him develop skills in identifying art and describing objects. He became an expert in these areas and eventually led both departments. Many coworkers believed he would one day become chairman of the auction house.

During this time, Chatwin traveled widely for work and for adventure. He found relief from the British class system, which he found restrictive. He admired Robert Byron’s book The Road to Oxiana and visited Afghanistan twice. He also bought antiques in markets to sell for extra money. He became friends with artists, collectors, and dealers, including Howard Hodgkin, who painted Chatwin in The Japanese Screen (1962). Chatwin described himself as the “acid green smear on the left.”

Chatwin was unsure about his sexual orientation and had relationships with both men and women during this period. One of his girlfriends, Elizabeth Chanler, was an American who worked at Sotheby’s. She had a history degree from Radcliffe College and moved to London in 1961. Her love of travel and independent nature interested Chatwin.

By the mid-1960s, Chatwin grew unhappy at Sotheby’s. He felt uncomfortable with how his attractiveness was used to persuade wealthy people to sell art. He also described feeling “burnt out” and compared his work to “working for a funeral parlour.” In late 1964, Chatwin began having vision problems, which he linked to his job. An eye specialist diagnosed a latent squint and advised a six-month break. The specialist suggested Chatwin visit East Africa, and in February 1965, Chatwin traveled to Sudan. There, he met a nomadic tribe, whose lifestyle fascinated him. He later wrote about how their way of life made him feel inadequate.

Chatwin returned to Sotheby’s and, to his friends’ surprise, proposed marriage to Elizabeth Chanler. They married on August 21, 1965. Chatwin was bisexual during their marriage, a fact Elizabeth knew and accepted. He hoped to stop his homosexual relationships and have a successful marriage like his parents. However, he had many affairs with men. Some believed their marriage was chaste, but their biographer, Nicholas Shakespeare, said this was not true. Both Chatwin and Elizabeth wanted children but remained childless.

In April 1966, at age 26, Chatwin was promoted to a director at Sotheby’s, a position he had long wanted. However, he was made a junior director without voting rights on the board. This, along with boredom and concerns about illegal deals at the company, led him to resign in June 1966.

In October 1966, Chatwin enrolled at the University of Edinburgh to study Archaeology. He had regretted not attending Oxford and had considered university for years. A visit to the Hermitage in Leningrad in December 1965 sparked his interest in archaeology. Though he won the Wardrop Prize for his first year’s work, he found academic archaeology too demanding and left after two years without earning a degree.

After leaving Edinburgh, Chatwin decided to become a writer.

Writing style

John Updike described Chatwin's writing as "short and precise, with many ideas packed into a few pages," while one of Chatwin's editors, Susannah Clapp, wrote, "Although his sentences were simple, his words were not plain. His writing is both brief and colorful." Chatwin's writing was influenced by his job as a cataloguer at Sotheby's, where he practiced writing short, vivid descriptions of objects to attract buyers. His writing was also shaped by his interest in nomads, who lived with few possessions. Their simple lifestyle matched Chatwin's own desire for minimalism, and he tried to remove unnecessary items from his life and unnecessary words from his writing.

Chatwin tried different formats in his writing. In In Patagonia, Clapp described the book's structure of 97 short scenes as "Cubist," meaning many small images tilted in different directions to create a unique picture of Patagonia. The Songlines was another experiment. The book starts as a novel told by a man named Bruce, but later changes into a collection of quotes, stories, and research summaries to explore the theme of restlessness. Some critics thought this format did not work well, while others praised Chatwin's creative approach.

Many 19th- and 20th-century writers influenced Chatwin's work. He said he copied the style of Robert Byron when he first wrote about his travels. In Patagonia, he read In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway, whom he admired for writing simply. While writing In Patagonia, Chatwin aimed to write like a "literary Cartier-Bresson," a photographer known for capturing quick, meaningful moments. His biographer described his prose as "short, vivid descriptions of ordinary people." Along with Hemingway and Cartier-Bresson, Osip Mandelstam's work strongly influenced Chatwin during In Patagonia. Chatwin admired Noël Coward and found the breakfast scene in Private Lives helpful for learning how to write dialogue. When he began writing The Viceroy of Ouidah, he studied the work of 19th-century French writers like Honoré de Balzac and Gustave Flaubert, who continued to influence him for the rest of his life.

Themes

Chatwin explored several themes in his work: human restlessness and wandering; borders and exile; and art and objects.

He believed human restlessness was the main focus of his writing. He wanted to explore this topic to answer a question he thought was important about why people exist. He thought humans were meant to move around, and when they stayed in one place, their natural desires often led to problems like violence, greed, or a desire for new things. In his first book, The Nomadic Alternative, Chatwin tried to write a detailed explanation about nomadic cultures, which he felt were not studied or appreciated enough. He asked, "Why do men wander rather than sit still?" In his book proposal, he admitted his interest in the topic was personal: "Why do I become restless after a month in one place, unbearable after two?"

Although The Nomadic Alternative was not successful, Chatwin returned to the theme of restlessness in later books. Writer Jonathan Chatwin (no relation) said Chatwin's works can be grouped into two types: "restlessness defined" and "restlessness explained." Many of his books describe restlessness, such as the twin in On the Black Hill who wants to leave home, or the main character in Utz, who feels restless to visit Vichy each year but always returns to Prague. Chatwin tried to explain restlessness in The Songlines, which focused on the Aboriginal Australians' walkabout. For this, he used research from The Nomadic Alternative.

Borders are another theme in Chatwin's work. Elizabeth Chatwin said he was interested in borders, where things are always changing. In Patagonia, his first published book, describes an area shared by Argentina and Chile. The Viceroy of Ouidah is about a Brazilian who trades slaves in Dahomey. On the Black Hill takes place on the borders of Wales and England. In The Songlines, the main character interacts with people who connect Aboriginal and white Australian cultures. The main character in Utz travels back and forth across the Iron Curtain.

Nicholas Murray said the theme of exile, or people living on the edges of society, appears in Chatwin's work both literally and metaphorically. He pointed out examples, such as people who were actual exiles, like those in In Patagonia or the Viceroy of Ouidah, who could not return to Brazil. Murray also noted the main characters in On the Black Hill were not exiles in the traditional sense but felt disconnected from the events and values of their time. Similarly, the main character in Utz is "trapped in a society whose values are not his own but which he cannot bring himself to leave."

Chatwin returned to the topic of art and objects throughout his career. In early articles for the Sunday Times Magazine, he wrote about art and artists, many of which were later included in What Am I Doing Here. The main focus of Utz is the impact of owning art, such as porcelain figures, on a collector. The main character in Utz stays in Czechoslovakia because he refuses to give up his porcelain collection, even though he could live in the West. Chatwin struggled with wanting to own beautiful things and wanting to live in a space free of unnecessary objects. His dislike of the art world came from his time at Sotheby's. This topic appears in the final section of What Am I Doing Here, called "Tales from the Art World," which includes four short stories. At the end of the book, Chatwin shares a piece of advice he received from Noël Coward: "Never let anything artistic stand in your way." Chatwin said, "I've always acted on that advice."

Influence

When Bruce Chatwin published In Patagonia, he helped make travel writing more exciting. His biographer, Nicholas Murray, said Chatwin showed that creative writers could give old genres new life. Chatwin’s clear and vivid writing, along with his focus on international places at a time when many English writers focused on home, made his work stand out. Chatwin was also known for his good looks, and his image as a stylish traveler helped him become famous. Younger writers like Rory Stewart said Chatwin made travel writing popular. In The New York Times, Andrew Harvey wrote that many English writers of his generation wanted to be like Chatwin, to write about places like Fez, Nigeria, and Nuristan with confidence and to be admired for their work.

Chatwin’s books inspired some readers to visit Patagonia and Australia. This led to more tourists visiting Patagonia, and it became common to see visitors carrying copies of In Patagonia. His book The Songlines also inspired readers to visit Australia and meet people Chatwin had written about, even though he had not told them he was writing about them.

Chatwin influenced other writers, such as Claudio Magris, Luis Sepúlveda, Philip Marsden, and William Dalrymple. Nicholas Shakespeare said Chatwin’s work was hard to categorize, which helped other writers break free from traditional writing styles. Although Chatwin was often called a travel writer, he did not see himself as one or as a novelist. He preferred to call his work "stories" or "searches." He was interested in big questions about human life, unusual stories, and connecting ideas from different places. His friend Robyn Davidson said Chatwin asked questions that many people want answers to and made it seem like answers might exist.

After Chatwin died, his work gained a strong following. By 1998, over a million copies of his books had been sold. However, his reputation suffered later because of questions about the truth in his writing and details about his personal life.

Some people questioned the accuracy of Chatwin’s work before his death. He admitted to adding some details to In Patagonia but said there were not many. Nicholas Shakespeare found few examples of outright lies in the book, mostly small changes, such as when Chatwin wrote about a nurse who liked Osip Mandelstam, a writer he admired, when she actually liked Agatha Christie. When asked about the line between fact and fiction, Chatwin said, "I don’t think there is [a division]."

Some people featured in In Patagonia were unhappy with how Chatwin described them. One man felt Chatwin suggested he was homosexual, and another woman believed Chatwin unfairly portrayed her father. However, one farmer in the book said Chatwin’s descriptions of his community were truthful, even if not flattering.

Chatwin’s best-selling book, The Songlines, has faced criticism. Some say his view of Aboriginal culture is "colonialist" because he relied on white Australians instead of Aboriginal people for information. Others, like writer Thomas Keneally, believe the book should be widely read in Australia, where many people had not heard of the songlines before.

Questions about the truth in Chatwin’s writing grew after it was revealed he was bisexual and died from an AIDS-related illness. Some critics began to doubt his work, thinking he might have lied about his life and his books. Nicholas Shakespeare said some readers judged his books harshly or avoided them altogether. In 2010, The Guardian asked, "Does anyone read Bruce Chatwin these days?" However, Rory Stewart said Chatwin remains an important writer, even if his work is less popular now. In 2008, The Times ranked Chatwin No. 46 on their list of "50 Greatest British Writers Since 1945."

Chatwin’s name is used to sell Moleskine notebooks. In The Songlines, Chatwin wrote about small black notebooks he bought in Paris called "moleskines." These notebooks were a major part of the book, where Chatwin wrote about the last producer of such books. In 1995, Marta Sebregondi read The Songlines and suggested to her employer, Modo & Modo, that they produce moleskine notebooks. The company began selling them in 1997 and used Chatwin’s name to promote them. Modo & Modo was sold in 2006 and became known as Moleskine SpA.

In 2014, the clothing brand Burberry created a collection inspired by Chatwin’s books. The next year, Burberry released a limited edition of Chatwin’s books with special covers.

In September 2019, the BBC broadcast a documentary film titled Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin, directed by Werner Herzog.