Spirit of Place: Letters and Essays on Travel Book

The definitive collection of travel writings by one of the twentieth century's best-loved journeyers
From the moment of his birth, Lawrence Durrell was far from home. A British child in India, he was sent to England to receive an education, and by his early twenties had already tired of his native land. With family in tow, he departed for Greece, and spent the rest of his life wandering the world. He traveled not to sightsee but to live, and made homes in Egypt, France, Yugoslavia, and Argentina. Each time he landed, he rooted himself deep into the native soil, taking in not just the sights and sounds of his new land, but the essential character of the country. In these letters and essays, Durrell exhibits the power of poetic observation that made his travel writing so extraordinary to post–World War II readers. In these pages he reminds us not just of each country's hidden charms, but of the unique characteristics that persist through the generations.

Born in Jalandhar, British India, in 1912 to Indian-born British colonials, Lawrence Durrell was a critically hailed and beloved novelist, poet, humorist, and travel writer best known for the Alexandria Quartet novels, which were ranked by the Modern Library as among the greatest works of English literature in the twentieth century. A passionate and dedicated writer from an early age, Durrell's prolific career also included the groundbreaking Avignon Quintet, whose first novel, Monsieur (1974), won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and whose third novel, Constance (1982), was nominated for the Booker Prize. He also penned the celebrated travel memoir Bitter Lemons of Cyprus (1957), which won the Duff Cooper Prize. Durrell corresponded with author Henry Miller for forty-five years, and Miller influenced much of his early work, including a provocative and controversial novel, The Black Book (1938). Durrell died in France in 1990.