International Bestseller: The famed travel writer and author of In
Patagonia traverses Australia, exploring Aboriginal culture and
song--and humanity's origins.
Long ago, the creators wandered Australia and sang the landscape into
being, naming every rock, tree, and watering hole in the great desert.
Those songs were passed down to the Aboriginals, and for centuries they
have served not only as a shared heritage but as a living map. Sing the
right song, and it can guide you across the desert. Lose the words, and
you will die.
Into this landscape steps Bruce Chatwin, the greatest travel writer of
his generation, who comes to Australia to learn these songs. A born
wanderer, whose lust for adventure has carried him to the farthest
reaches of the globe, Chatwin is entranced by the cultural heritage of
the Aboriginals. As he struggles to find the deepest meaning of these
ancient, living songs, he is forced to embark on a much more difficult
journey--through his own history--to reckon with the nature of language
itself.
Part travelogue, part memoir, part novel, The Songlines is one of
Bruce Chatwin's final--and most ambitious--works. From the author of the
bestselling In Patagonia and On the Black Hill, a sweeping
exploration of a landscape, a people, and one man's history, it is the
sort of book that changes the reader forever.
