Paul Theroux

"The wish to travel seems to me characteristically human: the desire to move, to satisfy your curiosity or ease your fears, to change the circumstances of our life, to be a stranger, to make a friend, to experience an exotic landscape, to risk the unknown..."
- Paul Theroux, The Tao of Travel

ABOUT PAUL THEROUX

Paul Theroux is truly one of the world's premier travel writers, known for numerous books about his journeys across Africa and Asia and also for a number of fictional novels and short stories.  His sharp and satirical wit, his eye for detail, and his insights on human nature, define his work.  Theroux grew up in Massachusetts, went to school in Maine, and grew to love Africa while in the Peace Corps in Malawi.  He now lives in Cape Cod and Hawaii.  His style has been described as grumpy, opinionated and sarcastic; his own description of himself is of a novelist who travels, someone who uses travel as a background for his stories.  Some of his best work revolves around riding on trains, and the self-discovery involved with traveling alone.  As Theroux says in The Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, "Delay and dirt are the realities of the most rewarding travel".

A5 RECOMMENDED TRAVEL BOOKS - PAUL THEROUX

PAUL THEROUX - TRAVEL WRITING COLLECTIONS

PAUL THEROUX - RECOMMENDED FICTION

PAUL THEROUX - THE BEST AMERICAN TRAVEL WRITING

Paul Theroux was the guest editor of both the 2014  and the 2001 versions of The Best American Travel Writing series, the first time that a writer was selected twice.  His selection of stories celebrates exploration and ordeals, the truth in travel, and therefore the 2001 version is just as good as the 2014. version.   And, perhaps most importantly, Theroux is drawn to great writing, and so of course his recommendations are stellar.  Click here to see our review of The Best American Travel Writing series.

GREAT QUOTES:

"You go away for a long time and return a different person - you never come all the way back.” 
- Paul Theroux, Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town

"Mark Twain was a great traveler and he wrote three or four great travel books. I wouldn't say that I'm a travel novelist but rather a novelist who travels - and who uses travel as a background for finding stories of places.
- Paul Theroux

“Reading alters the appearance of a book. Once it has been read, it never looks the same again, and people leave their individual imprint on a book they have read. Once of the pleasures of reading is seeing this alteration on the pages, and the way, by reading it, you have made the book yours.” 
- Paul Theroux, The Old Patagonian Express:  By Train Through the Americas

INTERESTING LINKS:

  • Read "Why We Travel", by Paul Theroux, New York Times, April 2011
  • Or, read "The Lesson of My LIfe", by Paul Theroux, Conde Nast Traveler, April 2009
  • Read Michael Shapiro's interview with Paul Theroux in A Sense of Place, a collection of face to face discussions with some the world's best travel writers on their craft and on their inspiration.​