Colin Thubron

Thubron is the son of Brigadier Gerald Thubron and of Evelyn (née Dryden), a collateral descendant of the poet John Dryden and of Samuel Morse, inventor of the Morse Code. He was born in London and educated at Eton College. Before becoming a writer he worked for five years in publishing in London and New York City, and made independent documentary films that were shown on BBC television. He is married to the Shakespeare scholar Margreta de Grazia.

Thubron's first travel book, Mirror to Damascus, was published in 1967, the first such book on the city for a century.{{cite book|title=Mirror to Damascus|year=2010|publisher=WorldCat|oclc = 3876772}} It was followed the next year by The Hills of Adonis: A Quest in Lebanon, a lyrical account of a journey through the country, pre-civil war, and the next year by Jerusalem. While starting a parallel career as a novelist, he completed a travel book on Cyprus, Journey into Cyprus, in 1974, just before Turkey invaded the island.

In 1981, during the Brezhnev era, Thubron broke with his earlier work (on cities and small countries) and travelled by car into the Soviet Union, a journey recorded in Among the Russians. This was followed in 1987 by Behind the Wall: A Journey Through China (winner of the Hawthornden PrizeHawthornden Prize Hawthornden Prize and the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award),{{cite web|url=http://www.thomascookpublishing.com/ba_prev_winners.htm |title=Thomas Cook Publishing |access-date=2015-01-04 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050831031541/http://www.thomascookpublishing.com/ba_prev_winners.htm |archive-date=31 August 2005 |df=dmy }} Thomas Cook Travel Book Award and in 1994 by The Lost Heart of Asia, the record of a journey through the newly independent nations of Central Asia.

In 1999 his book In Siberia[https://www.nytimes.com/books/00/02/06/reviews/000206.06.Kalfust.htm/] In Siberia (Prix Bouvier, France), an exploration of the farthest reaches of the ex-Soviet Union, was published. In an episode of the BBC Radio 4 programme Bookclub in 2018, Thubron discussed the book with the presenter James Naughtie and answered questions from the audience.{{cite news |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b09kx890|title=Bookclub – In Siberia |work=BBC Radio 4 |date=7 January 2018 |access-date=6 July 2023}}
A podcast is also available for downloading within the United Kingdom, but not necessarily elsewhere, as in some cases the BBC blocks its podcasts from being downloaded outside the United Kingdom. His book, Shadow of the Silk Road (2007), describes a 7,000-mile journey from China to the Mediterranean encompassing cultures in which Thubron has been particularly interested: Islam, China, the former Soviet Union, Central Asia, Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey.[https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/shadow-of-the-silk-road-by-colin-thubron-424971.html]{{dead link|date=August 2021|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}},(Prix Bouvier, France), Independent review: Shadow of the Silk Road.{{YouTube|o6WChHpHu68|Shadow of the Silk Road}}. His latest work is The Amur River: Between Russia and China (2021).

Most of Thubron's novels are notably different from his travel books. Several describe settings of enforced immobility: a psychiatric hospital, a prison, an amnesiac's mind. Notable among them are Emperor (1978), a study of the conversion of Constantine, A Cruel Madness (winner of the PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Award),[http://www.librarything.com/bookaward/PEN/Macmillan%20Silver%20Pen%20Award] Silver Pen Award. and Falling (1989). Others, however, use travel or a fictional abroad: Turning Back the Sun (1991) and an imaginary journey to Vilcabamba, Peru in To the Last City (2002), long-listed for the Man Booker Prize. It has been described as a "Heart of Darkness narrative" in a "Marquezian setting".{{cite news| url=http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/generalfiction/0,,764338,00.html | work=The Guardian | location=London | title=Back to the heart of darkness | first=Robert | last=McCrum | date=28 July 2002 | access-date=30 April 2010}} His most recent novel, Night of Fire, is his most ambitious: a multi-layered study of time and memory, which several reviewers named his masterpiece.{{Cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/colin-thubron-interview-travel-has-always-been-an-addiction-for/|title=Colin Thubron interview: 'Travel has always been an addiction for me'|work=The Telegraph|access-date=2017-05-24|language=en-GB}}

Thubron says that he was influenced by Palgrave's Golden Treasury as a schoolboy, and was initially inspired by the travel writing of Patrick Leigh Fermor, Jan Morris and Freya Stark. He admires the English novelist William GoldingWroe, Nicholas (9 September 2006) [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/sep/09/featuresreviews.guardianreview12 "On the road again"]. The Guardian and chose Victor Gollancz's anthology A Year of Grace as his book for Desert Island Discs.[http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/desert-island-discs/find-a-castaway/books/victor%2Bgollancz Desert Island Discs archive] BBC Radio – Desert Island Discs microsite

• Mirror to Damascus – Heinemann, 1967
• The Hills of Adonis: A Quest in Lebanon – Heinemann, 1968
• Jerusalem – Heinemann, 1969
• Journey into Cyprus – Heinemann, 1975
• Jerusalem – Time-Life, 1976
• Istanbul – Time-Life, 1978
• The Venetians – Time-Life, 1980
• The Ancient Mariners – Time-Life, 1981
• The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden – Hamish Hamilton, 1982
• Among the Russians – Heinemann, 1983
• Where Nights Are Longest: Travels by Car Through Western Russia – Atlantic Monthly Press, 1984
• Behind the Wall: A Journey through China – Heinemann, 1987
• [https://archive.org/details/silkroadbeyondce00thub/ The Silk Road: Beyond the Celestial Kingdom] – Simon & Schuster, 1989
• The Lost Heart of Asia – Heinemann, 1994
• In Siberia – Chatto & Windus, 1999
• Shadow of the Silk Road, Chatto & Windus, 2006
• To a Mountain in Tibet, Chatto & Windus, 2011
• The Amur River: Between Russia and China, Chatto & Windus, 2021

Forewords:

• Views from Abroad: The Spectator Book of Travel Writing, edited by Philip Marsden-Smedley & Jeffrey Klinke – Grafton, 1988
• The Lycian Shore by Freya Stark – John Murray, 2002
• The Road to Oxiana by Robert Byron – Penguin, 2007
• Stalin's Nose – by Rory MacLean – Tauris Parke, 2008
• The Travels of Marco Polo – Everyman, 2008
• Art, Life and Everything - by Julie Umerle - Susak Press, 2019

• The God in the Mountain - Heinemann, 1977
• Emperor – Heinemann, 1978
• A Cruel Madness – Heinemann, 1984
• Falling – Heinemann, 1989
• Turning Back the Sun – Heinemann, 1991
• Distance – Heinemann, 1996
• To the Last City – Chatto & Windus, 2002
• Night of Fire - Chatto & Windus, 2016

• Emperor - BBC Radio 4, September 1984, with Martin Jarvis as Constantine and Juliet Stevenson as Fausta.
• Great Journeys: The Silk Road – BBC 2 Television, presenter, 1989
• The Prince of the Pagodas - ballet scenario, the Royal Opera House, 1989, choreographed by Kenneth MacMillan
• A Cruel Madness – BBC Radio 4, May 1992, with Robert Glenister as Pashley and Harriet Walter as Sophia
• The South Bank Show – Time seen as a Road, on Colin Thubron, ITV television, 1992

• 1967 Book Society Choice, Mirror to Damascus
• 1969 Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
• 1985 PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Award, A Cruel Madness
• 1988 Hawthornden Prize, Behind the Wall: A journey through China
• 1988 Thomas Cook Travel Book Award, Behind the Wall: A Journey through China
• 1991 Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society
• 2000 Mungo Park Medal of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society{{cite web |url=http://www.rsgs.org/awardsandmedals/mungo.html |title=RSGS - Royal Scottish Geographical Society |access-date=2009-02-21 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101112212502/http://rsgs.org/awardsandmedals/mungo.html |archive-date=12 November 2010 |df=dmy-all }}, Royal Scottish Geographical Society.
• 2001 Lawrence of Arabia Memorial Medal of the Royal Society for Asian Affairs[http://www.rsaa.org.uk/awards/lawrence], Royal Society for Asian Affairs.
• 2002 Hon.D Lit University of Warwick[http://www2.Warwick.ac.uk/alumni/ouralumni/hongrads/all/], Warwick University
• 2003-9 Vice-President, The Royal Society of Literature
• 2007 Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), New Year's Honours
• 2008 Society of Authors Travel Award
• 2009–2017 President, The Royal Society of Literature
• 2010 Prix Bouvier, France, In Siberia[http://www.etonnants-voyageurs.com/spip.php?article5408], Prix Nicholas Bouvier
• 2011 Ness Award of the Royal Geographical Society
• 2014 International Prize, Spanish Geographical Society
• 2019 Edward Stanford Outstanding Contribution to Travel Writing Award{{cite web |url=https://www.edwardstanfordawards.com/single-post/Winners-of-the-Edward-Stanford-Travel-Writing-Award-Announced |title=Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards 2018 winners |publisher=Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards |date=February 28, 2019 |access-date=August 5, 2019}}
• 2020 RSL Companion of Literature
• 2021 Lifetime Achievement Award, Premio Chatwin, Italy
• 2021 Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year: The Amur River
• 2023 Travel Book of the Year, Premio Chatwin, Italy: The Amur River

• [http://www.nybooks.com/authors/13394 Thubron author page and archive] from The New York Review of Books
• Susan Bassnett: Interview with Colin Thubron, Studies in Travel Writing, No 3, 1999
• Interview: The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/sep/23/travel.travelbooks
• Overview: British Council: https://web.archive.org/web/20131113194125/http://literature.britishcouncil.org/colin-thubron
• Interview: The Independent: https://web.archive.org/web/20121105020336/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-5039074.html
• Interview:http://www.bookrags.com/ColinThubron{{Dead link|date=July 2019 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} – United States
• The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing ed. Hulme and Youngs, CUP, 2002, pp. 95–6
• Interview: The Sunday Times: http://www.accessinterviews.com/interviews/detail/colin-thubron/4256
• The New York Review of Books: The Amazing Wanderer: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2007/dec/20/the-amazing-wanderer/
• Review: https://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/15/books/review/Adams.html
• The Times: [https://archive.today/20080718204414/http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article3127347.ece]
• Interview: The Geographical Magazine'': https://web.archive.org/web/20100201172301/http://www.geographical.co.uk/Magazine/People/Colin_Thubron_-_May_2007.html
• [http://www.debretts.co.uk/people/biographies/browse/t/4517/Colin%20Gerald%20Dryden+THUBRON.aspx Debrett's People of Today]{{Dead link|date=July 2019 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}

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Category:1939 births

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