 Questions about the accuracy of his work existed prior to his death, and Chatwin had admitted to "counting up the lies" in In Patagonia, though he stated there were not many. While researching Chatwin's life, Nicholas Shakespeare stated he found "few cases of mere invention" in In Patagonia. Mostly, these tended to be instances of embellishment, such as when Chatwin wrote of a nurse who loved the work of Osip Mandelstam - one of his favorite authors - when in fact she was a fan of Agatha Christie. When Michael Ignatieff asked Chatwin his opinion of what divided fact from fiction, he replied, "I don't think there is [a division]."
