I recently received an email from a travel editor with the subject line: “What’s wrong with travel writing?”
The answer, according to the editor, was that there is little diversity in the group of people writing it. “What about traveling while Black, or queer, or disabled?” she asked.
My complaint about contemporary travel writing is that it is often more focused on the traveler – his or her experiences, feelings, epiphanies – than on the people traveled among. If the identity of the writer becomes a matter of importance, the level of self-centeredness will only rise. The one modern travel book that is hailed as a literary masterpiece – In Patagonia – would not have been improved by Chatwin writing about his homosexuality.
