Jonathan Raban wrote about human landscapes rather than uninhabited ones, and the borderlands between what a place professes to be and what they are.
An Englishman who emigrated to Seattle at the age of 47, his status as an outsider gave him a unique perspective on America as the land of perpetual self-reinvention. Many of his books involved water — from the coastal UK to the Mississippi and the Inside Passage — and all contain interior as well as physical journeys.
Julia Raban and editor John Freeman joined me to talk about Jonathan's fascination with sailing, the emigrant experience and reading landscape.
Paul Theroux on Orwell and Burma Sahib
James Salter: with biographer Jeffrey Meyers
Andrew Finkel: Sherlock Holmes and the Ottoman Empire
The Wakhan Corridor with Bill Colegrave
Justin Marozzi: Tamerlane and Samarkand
Alex Kerr: Finding hidden Japan
Barnaby Rogerson: The making of the Middle East
Sarah Anderson: Founding The Travel Bookshop
Louisa Waugh: Life on the edge of Mongolia
Bruce Chatwin: with editor and friend Susannah Clapp
Laura Trethewey: Mapping our unknown oceans
Tim Cocks: Life in Africa’s biggest megacity
Jeremy Bassetti: Pilgrims on Bolivia’s Hill of Skulls
The Pyrenees: Matthew Carr on Europe’s savage frontier
Simon Winchester: Outposts at the edge of the world
Tom Parfitt: Walking the High Caucasus
Richard Grant: Travels With American Nomads
Anthony Sattin: How nomads shaped settled civilization
The Sahara with Eamonn Gearon
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