The Traveling and Writing Self

Book excerpt: The collected essays that comprise The Traveling and Writing Self examine the critical relationship between the journey, the author of the travel narrative, and published and private texts. Contributors draw attention to the performed nature of the travel writer’s self, emphasizing that the carefully crafted persona of the traveler-protagonist is a fiction. The traveler’s identity is frequently in flux, negotiating between social convention, literary convention, personal motivations, and nationalist agendas. The Traveling and Writing Self is a notable addition to studies of travel writing because the contributors explore several genres in addition to the traditional accounts of the journey; these genres include histories of exploration, diaries, memoir, poetry, film, and short story. Not limited to a specific historical era or geographical location, individual chapters explore the work of Rebecca Solnit, Isak Dinesen, Melinda Atwood, William Byrd, E. J. Pratt, Beatrice Grimshaw, and Louisa May Alcott. From each, we learn that perhaps the most interesting subject of any travel account is the author.