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Travellers' Tales of Wonder
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Travellers' Tales of Wonder: Chatwin, Naipaul, Sebald

Simon Cooke

Abstract

This study challenges a sensibility of disenchantment with travel by exploring wonder in contemporary travel writing. It reassesses travel writing as an aesthetically and ethically innovative form in contemporary international literature, and demonstrates the crucial role of wonder in the travel narratives of Bruce Chatwin, V.S. Naipaul, and W.G. Sebald. Their tales are read as a challenge to the hubris of thinking the world too well known, and an invitation to encounter the world – including its most troubling histories – with a sense of wonder.

Keywords: Travel, Wonder, Chatwin, Naipaul, Sebald

Bibliographic Information

Print publication date: 2013 Print ISBN-13: 9780748675463
Published to Edinburgh Scholarship Online: September 2013 DOI:10.3366/edinburgh/9780748675463.001.0001

Authors

Affiliations are at time of print publication.

Simon Cooke, author
University of Edinburgh