| Bruce
Chatwin |
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| Nationality - English |
Profession - Author |
| Date of birth - 13 May 1940
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Date of death - 1989 |
| Place of birth
- Sheffield : |
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Bruce Chatwin was born in Sheffield, England, in 1940.
After leaving school, and choosing not to go to university, he gained employment at the famous auction house, Sotheby's in 1958.
He quickly rose through the ranks to become one of the company's youngest ever directors.
Growing disillusioned with the art world, he resigned unexpectedly in 1966.
Bruce started a degree in Archaeology at Edinburgh University but never completed it; although intelligent, he was not a scholar.
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On leaving university he decided to become a writer. The book he proceeded to write, yet never published, was called The Nomadic Alternative. The ideas contained in it were to haunt him for many years. Briefly, his theory was that man's natural state was that of a nomad and that 'settling down' in towns and cities caused the troubles of the world. The ideas were to resurface in his penultimate book The Songlines.
Following the difficult writing process and lack of interest from the publishers, Chatwin had to change track again. He took a job with the British Newspaper The Sunday Times as Arts Correspondent for their magazine. Chatwin had travelled widely in Central Asia, Africa and North America prior to taking this job. But his new role allowed him even greater travel opportunities to research articles.
In December 1974, Chatwin resigned from the Sunday Times Magazine and travelled to South America to research 'Something I've always wanted to write up'. Legend has it that he sent a telegraph to his editor saying 'Gone to Patagonia for 6 months' and never returned. The time he spent there resulted in his first published book, In Patagonia. Written in 97 very short chapters, it documents his travels in search of the cave in which his grandmother's cousin had found the remains of a giant sloth in the 19th Century.
His fame came with his first book, but he had many lives before this: art expert, journalist, failed student, photographer, traveller. Primarily, though, he was a storyteller and he used this gift to fascinate and irritate those around him and his readers in equal measure.
Despite his promiscuous nature and frequent affairs, both homosexual and heterosexual, he remained married to Elizabeth. For many years she had to live on her own as he travelled the world. There were times they didn't see one another for years. She nursed him as he died in France. Their friends are convinced that she was the only person he ever truly loved. One said to her: 'I think you know what you meant to him, which is everything.' This was perhaps the only fact that friends and acquaintances could agree about him. |
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Bruce Chatwin
bibliography - 2
listed |
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