The Cambridge Companion To Postcolonial Travel Writing

This Companion addresses an exciting emerging field of literary scholarship that charts the intersections of postcolonial studies and travel writing.

Table of contents

Travel writing has always been intimately linked with the construction of American identity. Occupying the space between fact and fiction, it exposes cultural fault lines and reveals the changing desires and anxieties of both the traveller and the reading public. These specially-commissioned essays trace the journeys taken by writers from the pre-revolutionary period right up to the present. They examine a wide range of responses to the problems posed by landscapes found both at home and abroad, from the Mississippi and the Southwest to Europe and the Holy Land. Throughout, the contributors focus on the role played by travel writing in the definition and formulation of national identity, and consider the experiences of minority writers as well as canonical authors. This Companion forms an invaluable guide for students approaching this new, important and exciting subject for the first time.

Critics have long struggled to find a suitable category for travelogues. From its ancient origins to the present day, the travel narrative has borrowed elements from various genres - from epic poetry to literary reportage - in order to evoke distant cultures and exotic locales, and sometimes those closer to hand. Tim Youngs argues in this lucid and detailed Introduction that travel writing redefines the myriad genres it comprises and is best understood on its own terms. To this end, Youngs surveys some of the most celebrated travel literature from the medieval period until the present, exploring themes such as the quest motif, the traveler's inner journey, postcolonial travel and issues of gender and sexuality. The text culminates in a chapter on twenty-first-century travel writing and offers predictions about future trends in the genre, making this Introduction an ideal guide for today's students, teachers and travel writing enthusiasts.

The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing brings together specialists from Anthropology, History, Literary and Cultural Studies to offer a broad and vibrant introduction to travel writing in English between 1500 and the present. This comprehensive introduction to the subject features specially commissioned contributions, including six essays surveying the period's travel writing; a further six focusing on geographical areas of particular interest - Arabia, the Amazon, Tahiti, Ireland, Calcutta, the Congo and California; and three final chapters analysing some of the theoretical and cultural dimensions to this enigmatic and influential genre of writing. Several invaluable tools are also provided, including an extensive list of further reading, and a detailed five-hundred year chronology listing important events and publications. This volume will be of interest to teachers and students alike.

Offers a lucid introduction to postcolonial studies, one of the most important strands in recent literary theory and cultural studies.

Travel writing has always been intimately linked with the construction of American identity. These specially-commissioned essays trace the journeys taken by writers from the pre-revolutionary period right up to the present. This Companion forms an invaluable guide for students approaching this new, important and exciting subject for the first time.

With its inclusion of original essays challenging the view of travel writing as a Eurocentric genre, this book will stand as a benchmark study of future inquiries in the field. It will revitalize the critical debate, sparking a much needed rethinking of a vibrant and highly popular but also volatile genre that has seen many changes in recent years.