Paul Theroux

Paul Edward Theroux (born April 10, 1941) is an American travel writer and novelist, whose best known work is The Great Railway Bazaar (1975), a travelogue about a trip he made by train from Great Britain through Western and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, through South Asia, then South-East Asia, up through East Asia, as far east as Japan, and then back across Russia to his point of origin. Although perhaps best known as a travel writer, Theroux has also published numerous works of fiction, some of which were made into feature films.

Biography

Theroux was born in Medford, Massachusetts, the son of Catholic parents, a French-Canadian father and an Italian mother. His French last name originates from the region around Sarthe and Yonne in France. It is quite common in Francophone countries and is originally spelled Théroux. After he finished his university education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, he joined the Peace Corps and taught in Malawi from 1963 to 1965. While working there, he helped a political opponent of Hastings Banda escape to Uganda, for which he was expelled from Malawi and thrown out of the Peace Corps. He then moved to Uganda to teach at Makerere University. During his tenure at Makerere University, Theroux began his three-decade friendship with novelist V. S. Naipaul, then a visiting scholar at the university. During his time in Uganda, an angry mob at a demonstration threatened to overturn the car in which his pregnant wife was riding. The incident made Theroux decide to leave Africa. He moved again to Singapore. After two years of teaching at the University of Singapore, he settled in England, first in Dorset, and then in south London with his wife and two young children.

Theroux currently lives in Hawai‘i. He is currently married to Sheila Donnelly (since November 18, 1995). He was married to Anne Castle from 1967 to 1993. He has two sons with his first wife – Marcel Theroux and Louis Theroux – both of whom are writers and television presenters. He said his (first) wife and he decided to give them both French first names intentionally. In his books Theroux frequently alludes to his ability to speak Italian and French.

Literary work

His first novel, Waldo, was published during his time in Uganda and was moderately successful. He published several more novels over the next few years, including Fong and the Indians and Jungle Lovers. On his return to Malawi many years later, he found that this latter novel, which was set in that country, was still banned, a story told in his book Dark Star Safari.

He moved to London in 1972, before setting off on an epic journey by train from Great Britain to Japan and back again. His account of this journey was published as The Great Railway Bazaar, his first major success as a travel writer, and which has since become a classic in the genre.[1] [2] He has since written a number of other travel books, including descriptions of traveling by train from Boston to Argentina (The Old Patagonian Express), walking around England (the poorly-received The Kingdom By The Sea) visiting China (Riding the Iron Rooster), and traveling from Cairo to Cape Town (Dark Star Safari). As a traveler he is noted for his rich descriptions of people and places, laced with a heavy streak of irony often mistaken for misanthropy. Other non-fiction by Theroux includes Sir Vidia's Shadow, an account of his personal and professional friendship with Nobel laureate V. S. Naipaul that ended abruptly after thirty years.

Controversy

By including versions of himself, his family, and acquaintances in some of his fiction, Theroux has occasionally disconcerted his readers. A. Burgess, Slightly Foxed: Fact and Fiction, a story originally published in The New Yorker magazine (August 7, 1995), describes a dinner at the narrator's home with author Anthony Burgess and a book-hoarding philistine lawyer who nags the narrator for an introduction to the great writer. “Burgess” arrives drunk and cruelly mocks the lawyer, who introduces himself as “a fan”. The narrator’s wife, like Theroux’s then-wife, is named Anne and she shrewishly refuses to help with the dinner. The magazine later published a letter from Anne Theroux denying that Burgess was ever a guest in her home and expressing admiration for him, having once interviewed the real Burgess for the BBC: “I was dismayed to read in your August 7th edition a story … by Paul Theroux, in which a very unpleasant character with my name said and did things that I have never said or done.” When the story was incorporated into Theroux’s novel, My Other Life (1996), the wife character is renamed Alison and reference to her work at the BBC is excised.

Theroux's sometimes caustic portrait of Nobel Laureate V.S. Naipaul in his memoir Sir Vidia's Shadow (1998) is at considerable odds with his earlier, gushing portrait of the same author in V.S. Naipaul, an Introduction to His Work (1972).

Film adaptations

Saint Jack, Theroux's 1973 novel about an affable American panderer operating in Singapore during the Vietnam War, was filmed by director Peter Bogdanovich (1979). His novel Doctor Slaughter was made into a film, Half Moon Street (1986). His novel The Mosquito Coast was also made into a film of the same name (1986). Chinese Box (1997), a film about the British handover of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China, credits Theroux as a source for the story, based on themes he explores in his 1997 novel Kowloon Tong.

Upcoming Projects

Theroux is working on two travel books: "The Cold World," about polar regions, and another book, in which he will revisit the settings of The Great Railway Bazaar. Also forthcoming is a novel, "Mother." According to the Theroux's recent New York Times op-ed piece, his next book will be "The Elephanta Suite".

Novels

Waldo (1967)

Fong And The Indians (1968)

Murder In Mount Holly (1969)

Girls At Play (1971)

Jungle Lovers

Sinning With Annie (1972)

Saint Jack (1973)

The Black House (1974)

The Family Arsenal (1976)

The Consul's File

Picture Palace (1978)

A Christmas Card

London Snow

World's End (1980)

The Mosquito Coast (1981)

The London Embassy (1982)

Half Moon Street (1984)

Doctor Slaughter (1984)

O-Zone (1986)

The White Man's Burden

My Secret History (1989)

Chicago Loop (1990)

Millroy The Magician (1993)

My Other Life (1996)

Kowloon Tong

Hotel Honolulu

Stranger At The Palazzo D'Oro

Blinding Light (2006)

Non-fiction

V.S. Naipaul, an Introduction to His Work (1972)

The Great Railway Bazaar (1975)

The Old Patagonian Express (1979)

The Kingdom By The Sea (1983)

Sailing Through China

Sunrise With Seamonsters (1985)

The Imperial Way

Riding The Iron Rooster (1988)

To The Ends Of The Earth

The Happy Isles Of Oceania (1992)

The Pillars Of Hercules (1995)

Sir Vidia's Shadow (1998)

Fresh Air Fiend (2000)

Nurse Wolf And Dr. Sacks (2001)

Dark Star Safari (2002)

Paul Theroux, the author of the train travel classics "The Great Railway Bazaar" and "The Old Patagonian Express", takes to the rails once again in this account of his epic journey through China. He hops aboard as part of a tour group in London and sets out for China's border. He then spends a year traversing the country, where he pieces together a fascinating snapshot of a unique moment in history. From the barren deserts of Xinjiang to the ice forests of Manchuria, from the dense metropolises of Shanghai, Beijing, and Canton to the dry hills of Tibet, Theroux offers an unforgettable portrait of a magnificent land and an extraordinary people.