Bruce Chatwin, The Songlines

Download PDF Add to Bookshelf Report an Error

This 1987 travelogue, Bruce Chatwin's most famous and hotly disputed text, is the autobiografictional fulfilment of a writerly dream which the author had been unable to pursue in the late 1960s and early 1970s. After he had ended his impressive career at Sotheby's London office (1959-66) because of a psychosomatic eye problem, Chatwin began to study archaeology at the University of Edinburgh. Several field trips to Africa and Afghanistan during his course of study launched his idea to write an all-encompassing, scientific theory of nomadology. With this extensive project he intended to prove that the human race, in the process of becoming human, had acquired a strong migratory drive or instinct to walk long distances through the seasons. This instinctive wanderlust had been repressed into…

965 words

Citation: Utz, Richard. "The Songlines". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 08 March 2001 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=7782, accessed 06 October 2024.]

7782 The Songlines 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.