Vintage Classics, New ed, 3 December 1998

Pb, 304 pp

The late Bruce Chatwin carved out a literary career as unique as any writer's in this century: his books included In Patagonia , a fabulist travel narrative, The Viceroy of Ouidah , a mock-historical tale of a Brazilian slave-trader in 19th century Africa, and The Songlines , his beautiful, elegiac, comic account of following the invisible pathways traced by the Australian aborigines. Chatwin was nothing if not erudite, and the vast, eclectic body of literature that underlies this tale of trekking across the outback gives it a resonance found in few other recent travel books. A poignancy, as well, since Chatwin's untimely death made The Songlines one of his last books.

The songlines emerge as invisible pathways connecting up all over Australia: ancient tracks made of songs which tell of the creation of the land. The Aboriginals' religious duty is ritually to travel the land, singing the Ancestors' songs: singing the world into being afresh. The Songlines is one man's impassioned song - David Sexton, Sunday Telegraph

Chatwin is not simply describing another culture; he is also making cautious assertions about human nature. Towards the end of his life Sartre wondered why people still write novels; had he read Chatwin's he might have found new excitement in the genre - Edmund White, Sunday Times

Chatwin delves into aspects of landscape that are beyond road signs and highways, and into a way of living that is entirely alien to the average European… those who are open to a bit of a wander will adore it, Evening Herald