Women Travel Writers

At the end of my review of Emma Larkin’s Secret Histories I made the comment that this book, along with Anna Funder’s Stasiland, “seems to be opening up a new genre (I’m hating myself for writing these words): female writers providing a personal perspective of political troubles; not personal as in their own perspectives, but in that they piece together the histories of the states they’re writing about through the stories of those who have lived within it.”

Evelyn Rodriguez from Crossroads Dispatches asked “I’m curious (other than fact these two authors are women) why do you emphasize “female” writers…do you think women are more suited to this style of research and writing and why?”.

It’s a good question to which I don’t have a pat answer. I’d say that anyone could write a book in the same format as Larkin or Funder (especially as they have already set the template, as it were). Tim Ecott does something similar with his latest book Vanilla, which I’m currently reading, which tells the tumultuous history of the spice through a series of encounters with individuals from Mexico to Madagascar through to Tahiti. It’s obvious from the book that Ecott has done a ton of history book research and grubbing around in libraries – but it’s clear from his narrative that he knows that it’s only by refracting these facts through modern lives, gaining first hand insight into how they have shaped people’s day to day existence, that they provide a real connection to the reader. So it’s not a gender-specific thing. My emphasis on “female writers” is only to emphasise that it’s mainly female writers that seem to be doing it and getting books published – not that I’ve conducted any research into this. There’s certainly an argument that women in general do actually bother to listen to people, whereas men are just waiting for a gap in the conversation to brag about their latest car/football/sexual conquest, but I’m not sure if male historians would take kindly to the idea that they don’t listen to people.

As a footnote, I’d say Sara Wheeler’s book about her time in the Antarctic, Terra Incognita, is well worth investigating not only because it’s a staggeringly evocative book about the snowy wastes and their grip on the West’s collective imagination, but also because she tackles the gender thing head on. As far as I can remember, Wheeler spends the opening chapter of her book slagging off all the otherwise venerated Arctic explorers for basically being egotistical dickwavers who brought about their own troubles, rather than exercising some rationale and quitting while they could. I remember it stuck in my craw because it seemed so uncharitable but also bang on the money. In doing so, she actively opens up the idea of different perceptions and agendas that divide the sexes. Beyond that, Terra Incognita is a genuinely great travel book – I wish I could re-read it now I’ve remembered it.

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