Contemporary Travel Writing of Latin America

Dr Lindsay (UCL Spanish and Latin American Studies) explains the focus of her book, which is the third to appear in the new Routledge 'Research in Travel Writing' series: ?When I say that I work on journey narratives of Latin America, many people ask whether I have travelled much to the region. Of course, throughout my career I have been able to go there regularly. For me what's interesting about that question, however, is that it inadvertently crystallises the very assumption I'm trying to overturn in this study: that is, that Latin America is a destination to be travelled to, primarily by Euro-American explorers, rather than a site of transit or 'domestic travel' to be traversed by Latin Americans themselves.? ?Paul Theroux has said that the 'home journey' is perhaps the most complex expedition of all and I think he's right in the case of Latin America, where vast differences and distances in terms of geography, topography, culture and ethnicity mean that 'home' for many of the region's travellers is not necessarily familiar, accessible or 'known' at all. The book is structured around four, much mythologised places in the geographical imagination: Patagonia, the Andes, Mexico and the Mexico?US border. As well as bringing to light a fascinating but rarely studied body of material by an array of 'writer-travellers', Contemporary Travel Writing of Latin America also advances a new critical vocabulary, which Dr Lindsay hopes will be germane to other scholars working in similar 'post-colonial' contexts.