Travel Writing and the Transnational Author - Hardcover

"This is a vital, and vibrant, study. It will help enrich not just travel writing studies, but indeed open up a much needed discourse and vocabulary on transnational literature as well as the muddled ground of crossovers between fiction and non-fiction. The interdisciplinary readings are superb and the author successfully presents a series of highly engaging and thoughtful readings of the works in question." - Rune Graulund, University of Southern Denmark

Travel Writing and the Transnational Author explores the travel writing and transnational literature of four authors from the 'postcolonial canon': Michael Ondaatje, Vikram Seth, Amitav Ghosh, and Salman Rushdie. By focusing on the under-considered influence of the authors' own travel writing on their later work, this book bridges two critical fields: travel writing and transnational literary studies. This results in a unique approach that interrogates both areas of study, while also complementing existing criticism on all four authors. Through an analysis of the links between their travel writing and later literature, Travel Writing and the Transnational Author re-considers what it means to travel, write, and exist as a contemporary transnational individual. Each chapter contains an in-depth analysis of selected texts - both early travelogues and later transnational literature - and the introduction gives background on the politics and poetics of the authors alongside a well-informed overview of topics such as postcolonial and travel writing studies.