In Patagonia

A travelogue that is barely a travelogue — a mosaic of fragmentary encounters, historical digressions, and character sketches from the southernmost tip of South America. Chatwin walked away from a career at the Sunday Times with a note saying he had gone to Patagonia, then sent back dispatches about Welsh Patagonian settlers, a Butch Cassidy bank robbery story, a piece of giant sloth skin in a remote museum, and the emptiness of the landscape itself. The book created a genre of literary travel writing that prioritized curiosity over itinerary and compression over description.