Worried about The Blitz, Margharita sought a safer place to stay. Mother and son remained there for a few weeks. Prior to his birth, Chatwin's parents had lived at Barnt Green, Worcestershire, but Margharita moved to her parents' house in Dronfield, near Sheffield, shortly before giving birth.

Ĭhatwin's early years were spent moving regularly with his mother while his father was at sea. The Chatwin family were well known in Birmingham, with Charles Chatwin's grandfather, Julius Alfred Chatwin, an eminent architect. She was born in Sheffield and worked for the local Conservative party prior to her marriage. His work is credited with reviving the genre of travel writing, and his works influenced other writers such as William Dalrymple, Claudio Magris, Philip Marsden, Luis Sepúlveda, Rich Cohen, and Rory Stewart.Ĭhatwin was born on at the Shearwood Road Nursing Home in Sheffield, England, to Charles Leslie Chatwin, a Birmingham solicitor and Royal Naval Reserve officer during World War II, and Margharita (née Turnell), daughter of a Sheffield knife manufacturer's clerk. He wrote five other books, including The Songlines (1987), about Australia, which was a bestseller. He left the magazine in 1974 to visit Patagonia, Argentina a trip that inspired his first book, In Patagonia (1977). He travelled the world for work and interviewed figures such as the politicians Indira Gandhi and André Malraux. The Sunday Times Magazine hired Chatwin in 1972. In 1966 he left Sotheby's to read archaeology at the University of Edinburgh, but he abandoned his studies after two years to pursue a career as a writer. After completing his secondary education at Marlborough College, he went to work at the age of 18 at Sotheby's in London, where he gained an extensive knowledge of art and eventually ran the auction house's Antiquities and Impressionist Art departments. In 2008 The Times ranked Chatwin as number 46 on their list of '50 Greatest British Writers Since 1945.'Ĭhatwin was born in Sheffield. He won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel On the Black Hill (1982), while his novel Utz (1988) was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

His first book, In Patagonia (1977), established Chatwin as a travel writer, although he considered himself instead a storyteller, interested in bringing to light unusual tales. Charles Bruce Chatwin FRSL ( – 18 January 1989) was an English travel writer, novelist and journalist.

In patagonia by bruce chatwin