Jonathan Raban

Jonathan Raban began his career as a literary critic and novelist in London, but found his true voice when he took to the sea and the open road. His travel writing was never mere reportage; it was a deep, psychological excavation of landscape and self. Books like 'Old Glory,' an account of a trip down the Mississippi, and 'Bad Land,' which explored the American West, blended sharp historical insight with a novelist's eye for character. He moved to Seattle in 1990, and his later work, including 'Driving Home,' a collection of essays on American life, cemented his reputation as a transatlantic intellectual. Raban's prose was precise, witty, and often darkly observant, treating every voyage as a question about identity and belonging.