First she had no money and then she became very ill. “My great-grandmother wanted to return to see Wales again. His other books are What Am I Doing Here and Anatomy of Restlessness, posthumous anthologies of shorter works, and Far Journeys, a collection of his photographs that also includes selections from his travel notebooks. Chatwin is being polite: my uncle was very fat and never went out, only hung around the house.” Bruce Chatwin (19401989) was the author of In Patagonia, The Viceroy of Ouidah, On the Black Hill, The Songlines, and Utz. “He describes my uncle sharply: ‘her grandson ate too much cake for his own good’. My great-grandmother was Mrs Jones in Chapter 10. Still, I never called my grandmother abuela. She was the one alone in the house talking to the children in her own tongue, switching to Spanish when the husband came home. “I come from Welsh stock but my mother was Spanish, so I never learned Welsh as a child that usually gets transmitted through the mother. She replies with a smile to light up the darkest Patagonian tempest. We pass through a gate under a sign proclaiming “ since 1944” into a healthy English-looking rose garden, though past this season’s bloom.Īna Rees, short, sprightly and jovial is waiting for us at the door. Beautifully written and full of wonderful descriptions and intriguing tales, In Patagonia is an account of Bruce Chatwins travels to a remote country in search of a strange beast and his encounters with the people whose fascinating stories delay him on the road.

Plas y coed means wooden house, but what I see in front of me is a one-storey brick building with Georgian sash windows. “Mrs Jones'” teashop in Gaiman, in reality Plas-y-Coed.

In patagonia chatwin