The Songlines
The late Bruce Chatwin carved out a literary career as unique as any writer's in this century: his books includedIn Patagonia, a fabulist travel narrative,The Viceroy of Ouidah, a mock-historical tale of a Brazilian slave-trader in 19th century Africa, andThe Songlines, his beautiful, elegiac, comic account of following the invisible pathways traced by the Australian aborigines. Chatwin was nothing if not erudite, and the vast, eclectic body of literature that underlies this tale of trekking across the outback gives it a resonance found in few other recent travel books. A poignancy, as well, since Chatwin's untimely death madeThe Songlinesone of his last books.