Literature/Literary Travel

So much of our travels can be enjoyed through the prism of literature. Some writers are intrinsically connected to a destination and you can still visit places associated with them. Just a very few examples:

Miguel Cervantes with Alcalá de Henares, Spain
Agatha Christie with Devon, England
Isak Dineson (Karen Blixen) with Kenya
Ian Fleming with Jamaica
Gabriel García Márquez with northern Colombia
Thomas Hardy with Dorset, England
Ernest Hemingway with Key West, Florida
Franz Kafka with Prague
James Joyce with Dublin
R.K. Narayan with Madras (Chennai), India
Pablo Neruda with Valparaíso and Viña del Mar, Chile
Tennessee Williams with New Orleans

The literary travel possibilities are nearly endless - have a read!

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The writing of 'In the Footsteps of Dracula: A Personal Journey and Travel Guide'

Old Parish Church Cemetery in Whitby, England My obsession to travel to every site related to either the fictional Count Dracula or his real historical counterpart, Prince Vlad Dracula the Impaler, grew out of a visit to Whitby, England, where part of the novel Dracula takes place. I stood on the cemetery hill (top) where, in Bram Stoker's Dracula Lucy Westenra and Mina Murray spent hour after hour sitting on their "favourite seat" (a bench placed over a suicide's grave near the edge of the…

Started by Tripatini

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Literary cruises in 'Whatever Your Pastime or Interest, There May Be A Cruise For You!'

Valtours/Dreamstime.com Whatever hobby, pursuit or pastime you enjoy, it’s possible there’s a voyage that will let you combine it with the pleasures of cruising. From food to fashion, music to mystery, the offerings are as varied as the destinations which are included on ship itineraries. An Internet search for cruises that interest you may turn up one or more alternatives. While cruise lines are gradually beginning to return to normal services, it’s necessary to check what sailings are being…

Started by Tripatini

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Joan Margarit, latest laureate of Spain's top literary prize

Each year since 1976, Spain's Ministry of Culture has awarded the country's equivalent of the Booker or the Nobel Prize for Literature to one of the world's most distinguished living Spanish-language writers. Past laureates have included not just Spain's poet Rafael Alberti as well as novelists Camilo José Cela, Miguel Delibes, Juan Goytisolo, and Ana María Matute, but also legendary Latin American luminaries such as Argentine Jorge Luis Borges; Cuban Alejo Carpentier; Mexicans Carlos…

Started by David Paul Appell

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Reading (and eating) your way through Puerto Rico

Many are the guidebooks that have been written about this tropical Latin Caribbean island, but few by Puerto Ricans themselves, and even fewer which focus on its delicious and sometimes exotic cuisine, fed by fresh local ingredients. Three years ago, now 40-year-old writer (and U.S. Marine reservist!) Jessica van Dop DeJesús (the "van Dop" courtesy of her Dutch husband) set out to remedy that by spending a month touring her native island with skilled photographer friend Ítalo Morales to…

Started by David Paul Appell

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Terence Baker December 19, 2010 at 8:08pm

Hi David,

Yes, I did, and it seems I did not just follow in the footsteps of Gabo but also the equally celebrated David Appell. I will read your article on Barranquilla, a city I liked. I must be unique in that I have now travelled twice from the USA to Colombia and still have not been to Cartagena.
Terence Baker December 19, 2010 at 8:02pm

Here is my latest humble effort, on Colombia, with Spain, my favourite place in the world.colombia.article.pdf

https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/9012270856?profile=original
David Paul Appell October 12, 2010 at 9:51pm

Cool trip, Terry! In Quilla, did you go to La Cueva, the bar/restaurant where Gabo & cronies hung out? It's a bit tarted up these days but still has a lot of lore inside (I wrote about Barranquilla for MSNBC.com a little while back; click here if you're interested in having a look). Then in Cartagena last year I rode by the house he owns there -- zipped up like a fortress, that one!
Sam Scribe October 10, 2010 at 6:43pm

I've just discovered this group. I read One Hundred Years of Solitude when I was a teenager, and its images are still with me. Terence, will you be writing about your trip, and if so, where?
Terence Baker October 10, 2010 at 6:35pm

I just returned from northern Colombia, where essentially I was following the "trail" of Gabriel García Márquez, from his earliest journalistic days in the sweaty, ramshackle port of Barranquilla (be sure to see its wonderful Museo del Caribe, which has a floor dedicated to the 1982 Nobel Prize winner (this year's winner, Peru's Mario Vargas Llosa, was the first south American winner since the Colombian)). I also went to Santa Marta and Riohacha, where the La Guajira Wayuu indians influenced his novella, The Incredible and Sad Tale of Innocent Eréndira and Her Heartless Grandmother. One notable excursion was to a hot spring in the Cienaga swamp, unlit (the car's headlights helped a little), with bats the size of dinner plates swooping down and, unseen behind thick foliage, a goods train rumbling by from the mines of Aracataca, García Márquez's birthplace. This really set my literary mind aswirl, images of the 3,000 dead workers massacred in the banana plantation of his fictional town of Macondo (did you see that the BP oil rig in the Mexican Gulf was called Macondo!) being transported away, as memorably portrayed in his One Hundred Years of Solitude.
Tripatini October 4, 2010 at 10:52pm

Don't miss the Tripatini blog post on the Agatha Christie trail in Devon, England!
Vera Marie Badertscher October 4, 2010 at 10:44pm

Where has this group been all my (LinkedIn) life? I'm a seasoned travel writer, but more important, I blog about books that inspire travel at ATravelersLibrary.com So this is right down my ally!

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