Bruce Chatwin

‘A triumph’

D.J. Taylor,
Times Literary Supplement

‘Nicholas Shakespeare’s eagerly awaited biography is quite fascinating’

Peter Lewis,
Daily Mail

‘An epic piece of work of immense fascination . . . In awe-inspiring detail and with a rounding-out of all the other characters, Shakespeare takes us successively through the milieux of Chatwin’s life . . . Our trustworthy guide on this magnificent ghastly safari hardly puts a foot wrong’

Duncan Fallowell,
The Times

‘Nicholas Shakespeare has tracked [Chatwin’s] restless ghost all over the world to make this brilliant connection between how he lived and how he wrote . . . So much of his life was devoted to deliberate obfuscation that the arrival, ten years after his death, of a convincing and coherent portrait is cause for celebration’

Colin Donald,
The Scotsman

‘In Nicholas Shakespeare, Chatwin has found, posthumously, the right biographer. This is a magnificent work of empathy and detection . . . Shakespeare’s biography looks set to be the definitive study. It is hard to see how it will be superceded’

Colin Thubron,
Sunday Times

‘Quite simply, one of the most beautifully written, painstakingly researched and cleverly constructed biographies written this decade. Shakespeare has a quite extraordinary empathy for his subject, whom he portrays with humour, warmth and an eye for telling detail, creating a book almost as original, intelligent and observant as those written by Chatwin himself

William Dalrymple,
Literary Review

‘I take my scalpel off to Nicholas Shakespeare. Biographies don’t come any better than this . . . Eight years in the writing, Bruce Chatwin is a glorious quilt-work of texts, voices and places, joined together with consummate judgment’

Justin Wintle,
Financial Times

‘Nicholas Shakespeare’s scrupulously impartial analysis of this most complex man is to my mind quite brilliant’

Catherine Hickman,
New Statesman

‘It is so difficult to have any sense of another person’s inner life, but in this vastly enjoyable book, Shakespeare successfully shines the torch on to a psychic landscape peopled by the fearful monsters that Chatwin kept mostly at bay by continually moving and reinventing himself’

Sara Wheeler,
Independent

‘This excellent . . . biography is very far removed from Chatwin’s own anecdotal concision. However, it is fantastically difficult to fashion a narrative out of the inchoate facts of someone’s life. Shakespeare has managed to pull it off’

Ian Thomson,
Guardian

‘Shakespeare must be praised for his energy, his always lucid presentation, and – above all – for his mostly poker-faced willingness to leave us as suspiciously intrigued by his strange subject as we were before’

Ian Hamilton,
Sunday Telegraph

‘Nicholas Shakespeare’s biography of Chatwin sweeps aside years of speculation and hearsay and gives us as intimate a picture of this enigmatic author as we can ever hope to have . . . Out of the biography emerges something that never came out of Chatwin’s own work, nor the myths that surrounded him: a complete person, warts and all . . . utterly compelling’

Philip Marsden,
Mail on Sunday

‘One of those rare biographies which takes us step by step through a life so far from humdrum that we close its pages muttering, with Hamlet, “what a piece of work is a man”’

Chris Gray,
Oxford Times

‘I bought this because I am an admirer of Nicholas Shakespeare’s brilliant reportage and novels. He turns out to be equally excellent as a biographer. Chatwin’s was a tragic and fascinating life. Coolly, sparely and never imposing himself (very rare in biographies), Shakespeare describes his subject’s character and adventure with such sympathy and drive that I feel compelled to return to Chatwin’s books’

Angela Huth,
Daily Mail

‘This is an authorised biography, but with none of the inhibition that an authorised biography usually entails. Nicholas Shakespeare has obviously done his research thoroughly – travelled in Chatwin’s footsteps, interviewed all his friends – and, although I am still not entirely convinced that Bruce Chatwin was the most fascinating man who ever lived, he proves quite fascinating enough to sustain these 550 pages’

Lynn Barber,
Daily Telegraph

‘A beautiful and completely absorbing book. I wish all biographies were this good and this well-written. I wish they moved so seamlessly from one person’s vigaette to another’s, as this one does . . . Boswell’s
Life
of Johnson and Shakespeare’s
Bruce Chatwin
are the two inspirational benchmarks for biography writing’

Peter Oliva,
The Vancouver Sun

‘One thing Bruce Chatwin could never do was tell the full unvarnished story of his life – his true and only masterpiece. That task has now been fulfilled by Nicholas Shakespeare in this remarkable biography – remarkable for its thoroughness, its insider’s crackle and its humane calm. This is a book blessed with perfect pitch . . . for Shakespeare, a novelist, has found in this story his own great subject’

Nicholas Rothwell,
The Weekend Australian

‘The long journey that encompassed Chatwin’s short life receives its first full exposition in this remarkable book. Not only has Shakespeare retraced the maze of Chatwin’s globetrotting, he has succeeded in producing a coherent portrait of a man whose history was only available through his own inventions and embellishments’

Robert Whitehouse,
The Richmond Book Review

BOOKS OF THE YEAR

‘Nicholas Shakespeare’s
Chatwin
is the beautifully paced biography of a challenging subject: the chameleon traveller Bruce Chatwin, who wrote books in a genre of their own, and whose life was his own subtlest creation. From a maze of evidence, Shakespeare has emerged with the convincing portrait of a complex, flamboyantly gifted and rather tragic figure’

Colin Thubron,
Guardian

‘I hugely enjoyed Nicholas Shakespeare’s
Chatwin
’

Max Hastings,
Sunday Telegraph

‘A fascinating, highly coloured read’

David Sexton,
Evening Standard

‘A first rate biography’

DJ Taylor,
New Statesman

‘A monumental biography’

Elizabeth Young,
New Statesman

‘Shakespeare’s wonderful biography is timely, for Chatwin continues to cast a long shadow’

Anthony Sattin,
Sunday Times

‘Nicholas Shakespeare’s monumental biography of
Bruce Chatwin
is a very nicely balanced assessment of the writer’s incandescent literary career, immense charm and self-love, which he saw reflected in the eyes of countless lovers, male and female’

Patrick Skene Catling,
Spectator

‘I particularly enjoyed Nicholas Shakespeare’s
Bruce Chatwin
for its lack of piety and complete readability, a brilliant dissection of the difference between what happened in his life and what happened in his books’

Ian Jack,
Observer

‘An impressive detective work penetrating to the core of an elusive writer’

Jackie Wullschlager,
Financial Times

‘When Nicholas Shakespeare’s
Bruce Chatwin
was published, its reviewers were largely drawn from those who had known him. I had never clapped eyes on the man so I was free to enjoy the biography unfurling like a rich nineteenth-century novel – dense with characters, events and the significance of Chatwin’s own writing’

Joan Bakewell,
New Statesman