- Published: 7 April 2000
- ISBN: 9780099289975
- Imprint: Vintage
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 656
- RRP: $42.99
Bruce Chatwin
- Published: 7 April 2000
- ISBN: 9780099289975
- Imprint: Vintage
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 656
- RRP: $42.99
Of my contemporaries he had the most erudite and possibly the most brilliant mind
Salman Rushdie
An epic piece of work of immense satisfaction... Awe-inspiring
The Times
A fascinating account of the man behind the myth
Guardian
Comprehensively researched, elegantly written, perfectly balanced between the life, the books and the ideas
Independent on Sunday
Quite simply, one of the most beautifully written, painstakingly researched and cleverly constructed biographies of this decade... Original, intelligent and observant
Literary Review
In Nicholas Shakespeare he has found, posthumously, the right biographer. This is a magnificent work of empathy and detection
Colin Thubron, Sunday Times
I take my scalp off to Nicholas Shakespeare. Biographies don’t come any better than this. Eight years in the writing, Bruce Chatwin is a glorious quilt-work of texts, voices and places, joined together with consummate judgement... Wisely Nicholas Shakespeare eschews detailed literary analysis. Such is his skill as a biographer, there is no need
Justin Wintle, Financial Times
It is so difficult to have any sense of another person’s inner life, but in this vastly enjoyable book Shakespeare successfully shines the torch onto a psychic landscape peopled by the fearful monsters that Chatwin kept mostly at bay by continually moving and reinventing himself
Sara Wheeler, Independent
Shakespeare must be praised for his energy, his always lucid presentation, and – above all – for his mostly poker-faced willingness to leave us as suspiciously intrigued by his strange subject as we were before
Ian Hamilton, Sunday Times
This is an authorised biography, but with none of the inhibition that an authorised biography usually entails. Nicholas Shakespeare has obviously done his research thoroughly – travelled in Chatwin’s footsteps, interviewed all his friends – and, although I am still not entirely convinced that Bruce Chatwin was the most fascinating man who ever lived, he proves quite fascinating enough to sustain these 550 pages
Lynn Barber, Daily Telegraph