text: bruce chatwin charles bruce chatwin ( 13 may 1940 – 18 january 1989 ) was an english travel writer , novelist , and journalist . his first book , in patagonia ( 1977 ) , established chatwin as a travel writer , although he considered himself instead a storyteller , interested in bringing to light unusual tales . he won the james tait black memorial prize for his novel on the black hill ( 1982 ) and his novel utz ( 1988 ) was shortlisted for the man booker prize . in 2008 the times named chatwin # 46 on their list of " 50 greatest british writers since 1945 . " chatwin was born near sheffield , england . at 18 he went to work at sotheby ’ s in london , where he gained an extensive knowledge of art and eventually ran the auction house ’ s antiquities and impressionist art departments . in 1966 he left sotheby ’ s to read archaeology at the university of edinburgh , but he abandoned his studies after two years to pursue a career as a writer . the sunday times magazine hired chatwin in 1972 . he travelled the world for work and interviewed figures such as the politicians indira gandhi and andré malraux . he left the magazine in 1974 to visit patagonia , which resulted in his first book . he produced five other books , including the songlines ( 1987 ) , which was a bestseller . his work is credited with reviving the genre of travel writing , and his works influenced other writers such as william dalrymple , claudio magris , philip marsden , luis sepúlveda , and rory stewart . married and bisexual , chatwin was one of the first prominent men in great britain known to have contracted hiv and to have died of an aids - related illness , although he hid the details . following his death , the gay community criticised chatwin for keeping his diagnosis secret . life early life bruce chatwin was born on 13 may 1940 in the road nursing home in sheffield , england to margharita ( née ) and charles chatwin . his mother margharita had grown up in sheffield and worked for the local conservative party prior to her marriage . his father charles was a lawyer from birmingham who joined the royal naval reserve following the outbreak of world war ii . chatwin 's early years were spent moving regularly with his mother while his father was at sea . prior to his birth , chatwin 's parents had lived at green , worcestershire , but margharita moved to her parents ' house in dronfield , near sheffield shortly before giving birth . mother and son remained there for only a few weeks . worried about nazi bombs , she sought a safer place to stay . margharita took her son with her as they travelled to stay with various relatives during the war . they would remain in one place until either margharita decided to move out of concern for their safety , or because of friction among family members . later in life chatwin recalled of the war , " home , if we had one , was a solid black suitcase called the rev - robe , in which there was a corner for my clothes and my mickey mouse gas mask . " during the war chatwin and his mother stayed at the home of his paternal grandparents , who had a curiosity cabinet that fascinated him . among the items it contained was a " piece of brontosaurus " ( actually a , a giant sloth ) , which had been sent to chatwin 's grandmother by her cousin charles milward . travelling in patagonia , milward had discovered the remains of a giant sloth , which he later sold to the british museum . he sent his cousin a piece of the animal 's skin , and members of the family mistakenly referred to it as a " piece of brontosaurus . " the skin was later lost but it inspired chatwin decades later to visit and write about patagonia . after the war , chatwin lived with his parents and younger brother hugh ( born in 1944 ) in west heath in birmingham , where his father had a law practice . he was educated at old hall school in shropshire and marlborough college , in wiltshire . an unexceptional student , he garnered attention from his performances in school plays . while at marlborough , chatwin attained a - levels in latin , greek , and ancient history . chatwin had hoped to read classics at merton college , oxford , but the end of national service in the united kingdom meant there was more competition for university places . he was forced to consider other options . his parents discouraged the ideas he offered — an acting career or work in the colonial service in kenya . instead , chatwin 's father asked one of his clients for a letter of introduction to the auction house sotheby 's . an interview was arranged , and chatwin secured a job there . art and archaeology in 1958 , chatwin moved to london to begin work as a porter in the works of art department at sotheby 's . chatwin was ill - suited for this job , which included dusting objects that had been kept in storage . sotheby 's moved him to a junior position working in both the antiquities and impressionist art departments . this position enabled him to develop his eye for art , and he quickly became known for his ability to discern forgeries . his work as a also taught him to describe objects in a concise manner and required that he research these objects . chatwin advanced to become sotheby 's expert on antiquities and impressionist art and would later run both departments . many of chatwin 's colleagues thought he would eventually become chairman of the auction house . during this period chatwin travelled extensively for his job and also for adventure . travel offered him a relief from the british class system , which he found stifling . an admirer of robert byron and his book , the road to , he travelled twice to afghanistan . he also used these trips to visit markets and shops where he would buy antiques which he would resell at a profit in order to supplement his income from sotheby 's . he became friends with artists and art collectors and dealers . one friend , howard hodgkin , painted chatwin in the japanese screen ( 1962 ) . chatwin said he was the " acid green smear on the left . " chatwin was ambivalent about his sexual orientation and had affairs with both men and women during this period of his life . one of his girlfriends , elizabeth chanler , an american and a descendent of john jacob astor , was a secretary at sotheby 's . chanler had earned a degree in history from radcliffe college and worked at sotheby 's new york offices for two years before transferring to their london office in 1961 . her love of travel and independent nature appealed to chatwin . in the mid - 1960s chatwin grew unhappy at sotheby 's . there were various reasons for his disenchantment . both women and men found chatwin attractive , and peter wilson , then chairman of sotheby 's , used this appeal to the auction house 's advantage when using chatwin to try to persuade wealthy individuals to sell their art collections . chatwin became increasingly uncomfortable with the situation . later in life chatwin also spoke of having become " burnt out " and said , " in the end i felt i might just as well be working for a rather superior funeral parlour . one 's whole life seemed to be spent valuing for probate the apartment of somebody recently dead . " in late 1964 he began to suffer from problems with his sight , which he attributed to the close analysis of artwork entailed by his job . he consulted eye specialist patrick trevor - roper , who diagnosed a latent squint and recommended that chatwin take a six - month break from his work at sotheby 's . trevor - roper had been involved in the design of an eye hospital in addis ababa , and suggested chatwin visit east africa . in february 1965 , chatwin left for sudan . it was on this trip that chatwin first encountered a nomadic tribe ; their way of life intrigued him . " my nomadic guide , " he wrote , " carried a sword , a purse and a pot of scented goat 's grease for anointing his hair . he made me feel overburdened and inadequate ... " chatwin would remain fascinated by nomads for the rest of his life . chatwin returned to sotheby 's and , to the surprise of his friends , proposed marriage to elizabeth chanler . they married on 21 august 1965 . chatwin was bisexual throughout their married life , a circumstance elizabeth knew and accepted . chatwin had hoped he would " grow out of " his homosexual behaviour and have a successful marriage like his parents . during their marriage , chatwin had many affairs , mostly with men . some who were aware of chatwin 's affairs with men assumed the had a chaste marriage but , according to nicholas shakespeare , the author 's biographer , this was not true . both chatwin and his wife had hoped to have children , but they remained childless . in april 1966 , at the age of 26 , chatwin was promoted to a director of sotheby 's , a position to which he had aspired . to his disappointment , he was made a junior director and lacked voting rights on the board . this disappointment , along with boredom and increasing discomfort over potentially illegal side deals taking place at sotheby 's , including the sale of objects from the pitt - rivers museum collection , led chatwin to resign from his sotheby 's post in june 1966 . chatwin enrolled in october 1966 at the university of edinburgh to study archaeology . he had regretted not attending oxford and had been contemplating going to university for a few years . a visit in december 1965 to the hermitage in leningrad sparked his interest in the field of archaeology . despite winning the wardrop prize for the best first year 's work , he found the rigour of academic archaeology tiresome , and he left after two years without taking a degree . the nomadic alternative following his departure from edinburgh , chatwin decided to pursue a career as a writer , successfully pitching a book proposal on nomads to tom maschler , publisher at jonathan cape . chatwin tentatively titled the book the nomadic alternative and sought to answer the question " why do men wander rather than stand still ? " chatwin delivered the manuscript in 1972 , and maschler declined to publish it , calling it a " chore to read . " between 1969 and 1972 , as he was working on the nomadic alternative , chatwin travelled extensively and pursued other endeavours in an attempt to establish a creative career . he co - curated an exhibit on nomadic art of the asian steppes , which opened at asia house gallery in new york city in 1970 . he considered publishing an account of his 1969 trip to afghanistan with peter levi . levi published his own book about it , the light garden of the angel king : journeys in afghanistan ( 1972 ) . chatwin contributed two articles on nomads to vogue and another article to history today . in the early 1970s chatwin had an affair with james ivory , a film director . he pitched stories to him for possible films , which ivory did not take seriously . in 1972 chatwin tried his hand at film - making and travelled to niger to make a documentary about nomads . the film was lost while chatwin was trying to sell it to european television companies . chatwin also took photographs of his journeys and attempted to sell photographs from a trip to mauritania to the sunday times magazine . while the times did not accept those photographs for publication , it did offer chatwin a job . the sunday times magazine and in patagonia in 1972 , the sunday times magazine hired chatwin as an adviser on art and architecture . initially his role was to suggest story ideas and put together features such as " one million years of art , " which ran in several issues during the summer of 1973 . his editor , francis wyndham , encouraged him to write , which allowed him to develop his narrative skills . chatwin travelled on many international assignments , writing on such subjects as algerian migrant workers and the great wall of china , and interviewing such diverse people as andré malraux , maria reiche , and madeleine vionnet . in 1972 , chatwin interviewed the 93 - year - old architect and designer eileen gray in her paris salon , where he noticed a map she had painted of the area of south america called patagonia . " i 've always wanted to go there , " chatwin told her . " so have i , " she replied , " go there for me . " two years later , in november 1974 , chatwin flew out to lima in peru and reached patagonia a month later . he would later claim that he sent a telegram to wyndham merely stating : " have gone to patagonia . " actually he sent a letter : " i am doing a story there for myself , something i have always wanted to write up . " this marked the end of chatwin 's role as a regular writer for the sunday times magazine , although in subsequent years he contributed occasional pieces , including a profile of indira gandhi . chatwin spent six months in patagonia , travelling around gathering stories of people who came from elsewhere and settled there . this trip resulted in the book , in patagonia ( 1977 ) . he used his quest for his own " piece of brontosaurus " ( the one from his grandparents ' cabinet had been thrown away years earlier ) to frame the story of his trip . chatwin described in patagonia as " the narrative of an actual journey and a symbolic one ... it is supposed to fall into the category or be a spoof of wonder voyage : the narrator goes to a far country in search of a strange animal : on his way he lands in strange situations , people or other books tell him strange stories which add up to form a message . " in patagonia contains fifteen black and white photographs by chatwin . according to susannah clapp , who edited the book , " rebecca west amused chatwin by telling him that these were so good they rendered superfluous the entire text of the book . " this work established chatwin 's reputation as a travel writer . one of his biographers , nicholas murray , called in patagonia " one of the most strikingly original postwar english travel books " and said that it revitalised the genre of travel writing . however , residents in the region contradicted the account of events depicted in chatwin 's book . it was the first time in his career , but not the last , that conversations and characters which chatwin presented as fact were later alleged to be fiction . for in patagonia chatwin received the hawthornden prize and the e. m. forster award from the american academy of arts and letters . graham greene , patrick leigh fermor , and paul theroux praised the book . as a result of the success of in patagonia , chatwin 's circle of friends expanded to include individuals such as jacqueline onassis , susan sontag , and jasper johns . ouidah and the black hills upon his return from patagonia , chatwin discovered a change in leadership at the sunday times magazine and his retainer was not continued . chatwin intended his next project to be a biography of francisco félix de sousa , a nineteenth - century slave trader born in brazil who became the viceroy of ouidah in dahomey ( present day benin ) . chatwin had first heard of de sousa during a visit to dahomey in 1972 . he returned to the country , by then renamed the people 's republic of benin , in december 1976 to conduct research . in january 1977 a coup took place , and chatwin was accused of being a mercenary , arrested , and detained for three days . chatwin later wrote about this experience in " a coup — a story , " which was published in granta and included in what am i doing here ( 1989 ) . following his arrest and release chatwin left benin and went to brazil to continue his research on de sousa . frustrated by the lack of documented information on de sousa , chatwin chose instead to write a fictionalised biography of him . this book was published in 1980 , and werner herzog 's film , cobra verde ( 1987 ) , is based on it . although the viceroy of ouidah received good reviews , it did not sell well . nicholas shakespeare said that the dismal sales caused chatwin to pursue a completely different subject for his next book . in response to his growing reputation as a travel writer chatwin said he " decided to write something about people who never went out . " his next book , on the black hill ( 1982 ) , is a novel of twin brothers who live all of their lives in a farmhouse on the welsh borders . for this book chatwin won the james tait black memorial prize and the whitbread prize for best first novel , even though he considered his previous book , the viceroy of ouidah , a novel . it was made into a film in 1987 . in the late 1970s chatwin spent an increasing amount of time in new york city . he continued to have affairs with men , but most of these affairs were short - lived . in 1977 he began his first serious affair with donald richards , an australian stockbroker . richards introduced him to the gay nightclub scene in new york . during this period chatwin became acquainted with robert mapplethorpe , who photographed him . chatwin is one of the few men mapplethorpe photographed fully clothed . chatwin later contributed the introduction to a book of mapplethorpe 's photographs , lady , lisa lyon ( 1983 ) . although elizabeth chatwin had accepted her husband 's affairs , their relationship deteriorated in the late 1970s , and in 1980 she asked for a separation . by 1982 chatwin 's affair with richards had ended and he began another serious affair with jasper conran . the songlines in 1983 chatwin returned to the topic of nomads and decided to focus on aboriginal australians . he was influenced by the work of theodore strehlow , author of songs of central australia and a controversial figure . strehlow had collected and recorded aboriginal songs , and shortly before his death in 1978 , he sold photographs of secret aboriginal initiation ceremonies to a magazine . chatwin went to australia to learn more about aboriginal culture , specifically the songlines or dreaming tracks . each is a personal story and functions as a creation tale and a map , and each aboriginal australian has their own . chatwin thought the songlines could be a metaphor he could use to support his ideas about humans ' need to wander , which he believed was genetic . however , he struggled to fully understand and describe the songlines and their place in aboriginal culture . this was due to chatwin 's approach to learning about the songlines . he spent several weeks in 1983 and 1984 in australia , during which he primarily relied on non - aboriginal people for information . chatwin was limited by his inability to speak the aboriginal languages . he interviewed people involved in the land rights movement , and he alienated many of them because he was oblivious to the politics and also because he was an admirer of strehlow 's work . while in australia , chatwin , who had been experiencing some health problems , first read about aids , then known as the gay plague . it frightened him and compelled him to reconcile with his wife . the fear of aids also drove him to finish the book that became the songlines ( 1987 ) . his friend the novelist salman rushdie said , " that book was an obsession too great for him ... his illness did him a favour , got him free of it . otherwise , he would have gone on writing it for ten years . " the songlines features a narrator named bruce whose biography is almost identical to chatwin 's . the narrator spends time in australia trying to learn about aboriginal culture , specifically the songlines . as the book goes on , it becomes a reflection on what chatwin stated was " for me , the question of questions : the nature of human restlessness . " chatwin also hinted at his preoccupation over his own mortality in the text : " i had a that the ' travelling ' phase of my life might be passing ... i should set down on paper a resume of the ideas , quotations , and encounters that amused me and obsessed me ... " following this statement in the songlines chatwin included extensive excerpts from his moleskine notebooks . chatwin published the songlines in 1987 , and it became a bestseller in both the united kingdom and the united states . the book was nominated for the thomas cook travel award , but chatwin requested that it be withdrawn from consideration , saying the work was fictional . following its publication , chatwin became friends with composer kevin volans , who was inspired to base a theatre score on the book . the project evolved into an opera , the man with of wind ( 1993 ) . illness and final works while at work on the songlines between 1983 and 1986 , chatwin frequently came down with colds . he also developed skin lesions that may have been symptoms of kaposi 's sarcoma . after finishing the songlines in august 1986 , chatwin went to switzerland , where he collapsed on the street . at a clinic there , he was diagnosed as hiv - positive . chatwin provided different reasons to his doctors as to how he might have contracted hiv , including from a gang rape in dahomey or possibly from sam wagstaff , the patron and lover of robert mapplethorpe . chatwin 's case was unusual as he had a fungal infection , penicillium , which at the time had rarely been seen and only in south asia . it is now known as an aids - defining illness , but in 1986 little was known about hiv and aids . doctors were not certain if all cases of hiv developed into aids . the rare fungus gave chatwin hope that he might be different and served as the basis of what he told most people about his illness . he gave various reasons for how he became infected with the fungus — ranging from eating a 1 , 000 - year - old egg to exploring a bat cave in indonesia . he never publicly disclosed that he was hiv - positive because of the stigma at the time . he wanted to protect his parents , who were unaware of his homosexual affairs . although he never spoke or wrote publicly about his disease , in one instance he did write about the aids epidemic in 1988 in a letter to the editor of the london review of books : " the word ' aids ' is one of the cruellest and silliest neologisms of our time . ' aid ' means help , succour , comfort — yet with a hissing sibilant tacked onto the end it becomes a nightmare ... hiv ( human - deficiency virus ) is a perfectly easy name to live with . ' aids ' causes panic and despair and has probably done something to facilitate the spread of the disease . " during his illness , chatwin continued to write . elizabeth encouraged him to use a letter he had written to her from prague in 1967 as an inspiration for a new story . during this trip , he had met konrad just , an art collector . this meeting and the letter to elizabeth served as the basis for chatwin 's next work . utz ( 1988 ) was a novel about the obsession that leads people to collect . set in prague , the novel details the life and death of kaspar utz , a man obsessed with his collection of meissen porcelain . utz was well - received and was shortlisted for the booker prize . chatwin also edited a collection of his journalism , which was published as what am i doing here ( 1989 ) . at the time of his death in 1989 , he was working on a number of new ideas for future novels , including a transcontinental epic provisionally titled lydia livingstone . chatwin died at a hospital in nice on 18 january 1989 . a memorial service was held in the greek orthodox church of saint sophia in west london on 14 february 1989 , the same day that a fatwa was announced on salman rushdie , a close friend of chatwin 's , who attended the service . paul theroux , who also attended the service , later commented on it and chatwin in a piece for granta . the novelist martin amis described the memorial service in the essay " salman rushdie " , included in his anthology visiting mrs nabokov . chatwin 's ashes were scattered near a byzantine chapel above in the peloponnese . this was close to the home of one of his mentors , the writer patrick leigh fermor . near here , chatwin had spent several months in 1985 working on the songlines . chatwin 's papers , including 85 moleskine notebooks , were given to the bodleian library , oxford . two collections of his photographs and excerpts from the moleskine notebooks were published as photographs and notebooks ( us title : far journeys ) in 1993 and winding paths in 1999 . news of chatwin 's aids diagnosis first surfaced in september 1988 . however , at the time of his death , obituaries referred to chatwin 's statements about a rare fungal infection . following his death , members of the gay community criticised chatwin for lacking the courage to reveal the true nature of his illness , which some people think would have raised public awareness of aids , as he was one of the first high - profile individuals in great britain known to have contracted hiv . writing style john updike described chatwin 's writing as " a clipped , lapidary prose that compresses worlds into pages " , while one of chatwin 's editors , susannah clapp , wrote , " although his syntax was pared down , his words were not - or at least not only - plain . ... his prose is both spare and flamboyant . " chatwin 's writing was shaped by his work as a at sotheby 's , which provided him with years of practice writing concise yet vivid descriptions of objects with the intention of enticing buyers . in addition , chatwin 's interest in nomads also influenced his writing . one aspect of nomadic culture that interested him was the few possessions they had . their spartan way of life appealed to his aesthetic sense , and it was something he sought to emulate in both his life and his writing . he strove to strip unnecessary objects from his life and unnecessary words from his prose . in his writing chatwin experimented with format . with in patagonia , clapp said chatwin described the book 's structure of 97 vignettes as " cubist . " " [ i ] n other words , " she said , " lots of small pictures tilting away and toward each other to create this strange original portrait of patagonia . " the songlines was another attempt by chatwin to experiment with format . the book begins as a novel narrated by a man named bruce but about two - thirds of the way through it becomes a commonplace book filled with quotations , anecdotes , and summaries of others ' research in an attempt to explore human restlessness . some of chatwin 's critics did not think he succeeded in the songlines with this approach , although others applauded his effort at trying an unconventional structure . several nineteenth and twentieth century writers influenced chatwin 's work . the work of robert byron had an impact on chatwin , who admitted to imitating his style when he first began making notes of his own travels . while in patagonia he read in our time by ernest hemingway . chatwin admired hemingway for his spare prose . while writing in patagonia , chatwin strove to approach his writing as a " literary cartier - bresson . " chatwin 's biographer described the resulting prose as " quick snapshots of ordinary people . " along with hemingway and cartier - bresson , osip mandelstam 's work strongly influenced chatwin during the writing of in patagonia . an admirer of noël coward , chatwin found the breakfast scene in private lives helpful in learning to write dialogue . once chatwin began work on the viceroy of ouidah , he began studying the work of nineteenth - century french authors , such as honoré de balzac and gustave flaubert . these writers would continue to influence chatwin for the remainder of his life . themes chatwin explored several different themes in his work . they include human restlessness and wandering ; borders and exile ; and art and objects . chatwin considered the question of human restlessness to be the focus of his writing . he ultimately aspired to explore this subject in order to answer what he believed was a fundamental question about human existence . he thought humans were meant to be a migratory species but once they settled in one place , their natural urges " found outlets in violence , greed , status - seeking or a mania for the new . " in his first attempt at writing a book , the nomadic alternative , chatwin had tried to compose an academic exposition on nomadic culture , which he believed was unexamined and unappreciated . with this volume chatwin had hoped to answer the question " why do men wander rather than sit still ? " in his book proposal he admitted that the interest in the subject was personal : " why do i become restless after a month in a single place , unbearable after two ? " although chatwin did not succeed with the nomadic alternative , he returned to the topic of restlessness and wandering in his subsequent books . writer jonathan chatwin ( no relation ) stated that chatwin 's works can be grouped into two categories : " restlessness defined " and " restlessness explained . " most of his work focuses on describing restlessness , such as in the case of one twin in on the black hill who longs to leave home . another example is the protagonist of utz , who feels restless to escape to vichy each year but always returns to prague . chatwin attempted to explain restlessness in the songlines , which focused on the aboriginal australians ' walkabout . for this work , he returned to his research from the nomadic alternative . borders are another theme in chatwin 's work . according to elizabeth chatwin , he " was interested in borders , where things were always changing , not one thing or another . " patagonia , the subject of his first published book , is an area that is in both argentina and chile . the viceroy of ouidah is a brazilian who trades slaves in dahomey . on the black hills takes place on the borders of wales and england . in the songlines the characters the protagonist mostly interacts with are people who provide a bridge between the aboriginal and white australian worlds . the main character in utz travels back and forth across the iron curtain . " the theme of exile , of people living at the margins ... is treated in a literal and metaphorical sense throughout chatwin 's work , " stated nicholas murray . he identified several examples in chatwin 's work . there were people who were actual exiles , such as some of those profiled in in patagonia and the viceroy of ouidah , who was unable to return to brazil . murray also cited the main characters in on the black hill , " although not strictly exiles ... [ they ] were exiles from the major events of their time and its dominant values . " similarly , murray wrote , utz is " trapped in a society whose values are not his own but which he cannot bring himself to leave . " chatwin returned to the subject of art and objects during his career . in his early writing for the sunday times magazine , he wrote about art and artists , and many of these articles chatwin included in what am i doing here . the main focus of utz is on the impact the possession of art ( in this case porcelain figures ) has on a collector . utz 's unwillingness to give up his porcelain collection kept him in czechoslovakia even though he had the opportunity to live in the west . chatwin constantly struggled with the conflicting desires to own beautiful items and to live in a space free of unnecessary objects . his distaste for the art world was the result of his days at sotheby 's , and some of his final writing focused on this . the final section of what am i doing here , " tales from the art world , " consists of four short stories on this topic . at the end of what am i doing here , chatwin shares an anecdote about advice he had received from noël coward , who told him " never let anything artistic stand in your way . " chatwin stated , " i 've always acted on that advice . " influence with the publication of in patagonia , chatwin invigorated the genre of travel writing ; according to his biographer , nicholas murray , he " showed that an inventive writer could breathe new life into an old genre . " the combination of his clear yet vivid prose and an international perspective at a time when many english writers were more focused on home instead of abroad helped to set him apart . aside from his writing , chatwin was also good looking , and his image as a dashing traveller added to his appeal and helped make him a celebrity . in the eyes of younger writers such as rory stewart , chatwin " made [ travel writing ] cool . " in the new york times , andrew harvey wrote , " nearly every writer of my generation in england has wanted , at some point , to be bruce chatwin ; wanted , like him , to talk of fez and , nigeria and nuristan , with equal authority ; wanted to be talked about , as he is , with raucous envy ; wanted above all to have written his books . " chatwin 's books also inspired some readers to visit patagonia and australia . as a result of his work , patagonia experienced an increase in tourism , and it became a common sight for tourists to appear in the region , carrying a copy of in patagonia . the songlines also inspired readers to travel to australia and seek out the people chatwin had based his characters on , much to their consternation , as he had failed to disclose to these individuals his intentions . beyond travel , chatwin influenced other writers , such as claudio magris , luis sepúlveda , philip marsden , and william dalrymple . nicholas shakespeare stated that part of chatwin 's impact was that his work was difficult to categorise and it helped " set free other writers ... [ from ] conventional boundaries . although he was often called a travel writer , he did not identify as one nor did he consider himself a novelist . ( " i don 't quite know the meaning of the word novel , " he said ) . he preferred to call his writing stories or searches . he was interested in asking big questions about human existence , sharing unusual tales , and making connections between ideas from various sources . his friend and fellow writer robyn davidson said , " he posed questions we all want answered and perhaps gave the illusion they were answerable . " posthumous influence according to his biographer nicholas shakespeare , chatwin 's work developed a cult - like following in the years immediately following his death . by 1998 one million copies of his books had been sold . however , his reputation diminished following revelations about his personal life and questions about the accuracy of his work . questions about the accuracy of his work existed prior to his death , and chatwin had admitted to " counting up the lies " in in patagonia , though he stated there were not many . while researching chatwin 's life , nicholas shakespeare stated he found " few cases of mere invention " in in patagonia . mostly , these tended to be instances of embellishment , such as when chatwin wrote of a nurse who loved the work of osip mandelstam - one of his favorite authors - when in fact she was a fan of agatha christie . when michael ignatieff asked chatwin his opinion of what divided fact from fiction , he replied , " i don 't think there is [ a division ] . " some individuals profiled in in patagonia were unhappy with chatwin 's portrayals of them . they included one man whom chatwin insinuated was homosexual and a woman who thought her father was unjustly accused of killing indians . however , chatwin 's biographer found one farmer who was featured in the book who thought chatwin 's depictions of himself and other members of his community were truthful . he stated , " no one likes looking at their own passport photograph , but i found it accurate . it 's not flattering , but it 's the truth . " chatwin 's bestseller , the songlines , has been the focus of much criticism . some critics describe his viewpoint as " colonialist " , citing his lack of interviews with aboriginals and his reliance instead on white australians for information about aboriginal culture . other criticism comes from anthropologists and other researchers who spent years studying aboriginal culture and who dismiss chatwin 's work because he visited australia briefly . there are others , such as writer thomas keneally , who believe the songlines should be widely read in australia , where many people had not previously heard of the songlines . the questions about the veracity of chatwin 's writing are compounded by the revelation of his sexual orientation and the true cause of his death . once it became known that chatwin had been bisexual and had died of an aids - related illness , some critics viewed him as a liar and dismissed his work . nicholas shakespeare said , " his denial [ of his aids diagnosis ] bred a sense that if he lied about his life , he must have lied about his work . some readers have taken this as a cue to pass judgement on his books – or else not to bother with them . " in 2010 the guardian 's review of under the sun : the letters of bruce chatwin opened with the question , " does anyone read bruce chatwin these days ? " however , rory stewart has stated , " his personality , his learning , his myths , and even his prose are less hypnotizing [ than they once were ] . and yet he remains a great writer , of deep and enduring importance . ” in 2008 the times named chatwin # 46 on their list of " 50 greatest british writers since 1945 " . legacy chatwin 's name is used to sell notebooks . chatwin wrote in the songlines of little black - covered notebooks that he bought in paris and which he called " " . the quotes and anecdotes he had compiled in these books serve as a major section of the songlines . in this book chatwin mourned the closing of the last producer of these books . in 1995 , marta read the songlines and proposed to her employer , modo & modo , an italian design and publishing company , that they produce moleskine notebooks . in 1997 , the company began to sell these books and used chatwin 's name to promote them . modo & modo was sold in 2006 , and the company became known as . in 2014 the clothing label burberry produced a collection inspired by chatwin 's books . the following year burberry released a limited edition set of chatwin 's books with specially designed covers . works in patagonia ( 1977 ) the viceroy of ouidah ( 1980 ) on the black hill ( 1982 ) the songlines ( 1987 ) utz ( 1988 ) what am i doing here ( 1989 ) posthumously published photographs and notebooks ( 1993 ) anatomy of ( 1997 ) winding paths ( 1998 ) documentaries paul yule , in the footsteps of bruce chatwin ( mins ) , bbc , 1999 – berwick universal pictures