Biography of Bruce Chatwin

The skill of storytelling

May 13, 1940
January 8, 1989
The writer Bruce Charles Chatwin was born on May 13, 1940 in Sheffield, Yorkshire, England. After completing his studies at Marlborough College, in Wiltshire, began working at the prestigious London auction house Sotheby's in 1958. The young Chatwin has a brilliant mind and artistic sensibility, in addition to evere an excellent visual perception: soon becomes the Impressionist expert for Sotheby's. At the age of 26 years is afraid even to lose the use of vision because of so much art, so he decides to give up the job. Begins to deepen their interest in archaeology, enrolling at the University of Edinburgh; to pay tuition fees and keep studying, working in the field of buying and selling of paintings. After his studies he works in Afghanistan, then in Africa, where he developed a strong interest in the nomads and their detachment from personal possessions. In 1973 he was hired by "Sunday Times Magazine" as a consultant on issues of art and architecture.
The professional relationship with the magazine will be very useful to develop that talent narrative that soon would emerge. For this job makes so many trips that offer the opportunity to write about topics such as immigration in Algeria and the great wall of China, and interviewing such figures as André Malraux in France and Nadezhda mandel'shtam in the Soviet Union. In Paris the architect Eileen Gray interview controversy novantatreenne; in the study of Gray, Chatwin note a map of Patagonia which she painted. In the brief exchange of banter that follows the architect invites Chatwin starting for that venue instead.
Shortly thereafter Chatwin left for Argentina. Just arrived at your destination will notify the newspaper of his departure by including his resignation. The result for the first six months of his stay will be the book "In Patagonia" (1977), which will consecrate Bruce Chatwin's reputation as a travel writer. Among his works include "the viceroy of Ouidah" studio on the slave trade for which he visited Ouidah, an old village of slaves in Africa and then in Bahia, in Brazil. For "the songlines" Chatwin visited Australia. In "what am I doing here?" (1989) writes of Howard Hodgkin, man has been tied up for more than 20 years. One of his last works is titled "Utz," a fantasy tale about obsession which leads people to collect. The style of Chatwin's lapidary and essential at the same time.
Among the most frequent criticisms include the charges for the fanciful anecdotes that often attaches to people, places and facts as if they were real. Many people that Chatwin wrote not recognized in his words and did not appreciate the distortions in respect of their culture, which he introduced. With the General astonishment of all his friends (considered his homosexual inclination) at the age of 25 years had married Elizabeth Chanler, known by Sotheby's. Childless, after fifteen years of marriage, the two split up selling the farm in the region of Gloucestershire. Come then to a reconciliation, but then comes shortly after the death of Chatwin. Towards the end of the ' 80 Chatwin contracted HIV. Hides his illness into believing that the symptoms are caused by an infection of a skin fungus or from the bite of a Chinese bat. With his wife he moved to the South of France where he spends the last months in a wheelchair. Dies in Nice the January 8, 1989 only 48 years.
Article contributed by the team of collaborators.