Profile of Paul Theroux on Famous Like Me

Paul Edward Theroux (born April 10, 1941) is an American travel writer and novelist, whose best known work is The Great Railway Bazaar (1975), a travelogue about a trip he made by train from Great Britain to Japan.

Theroux was born in Medford, Massachusetts. After he finished his university education, he joined the Peace Corps and taught in Malawi. While working there, he helped a political opponent of Hastings Banda escape to Uganda, for which he was expelled from Malawi and thrown out of the Peace Corps. He then moved to Uganda to teach at Makerere University there. During his tenure at Makerere University, Theroux began his three-decade friendship with novelist V.S. Naipaul, then a visiting scholar at the university. When Uganda under Idi Amin became an unpleasant place to live, he moved again to Singapore.

His first novel, Waldo, was published during his time in Uganda and was moderately successful. He published several more novels over the next few years including Fong and the Indians and Jungle Lovers.

He moved to London in 1972 before setting off on an epic journey by train from Great Britain to Japan and back again. His account of this journey was published as The Great Railway Bazaar, his first major success as a travel writer. He has since written a number of other travel books, including descriptions of travelling by train from Boston to Argentina (The Old Patagonian Express), visiting China (Riding the Iron Rooster), and travelling from Cairo to Cape Town (Dark Star Safari). As a traveller he is noted for his rich descriptions of people and places, laced with a heavy streak of irony often attributed as misanthropy. Other non-fiction by Theroux includes Sir Vidia's Shadow, an account of his personal and professional friendship with Nobel laureate V.S. Naipaul that ended abruptly after thirty years.

His novel Doctor Slaughter was made into a film, Half Moon Street (1986), starring Michael Caine and Sigourney Weaver, which received bad reviews from film critics. The Mosquito Coast was also made into a film of the same name (1986), directed by Peter Weir, and starring Harrison Ford, Helen Mirren, and River Phoenix. It received a more positive reception. Chinese Box (1997), a film about the British handover of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China, credits Theroux as a source for the story, based on themes he explores in his 1997 novel Kowloon Tong.

Theroux currently lives in Hawaii. He was married to Anne Castle 4 December 1967 (separated in 1991, divorced 1993). He is currently married to Sheila Donnelly (since November 18, 1995). He has two sons with Anne Castle - writer and television presenter Marcel Theroux, and television presenter Louis Theroux.

List of novels

List of non-fiction books

• The Great Railway Bazaar (1975)
• The Old Patagonian Express (1979)
• The Kingdom By The Sea (1983)
• Sailing Through China
• Sunrise With Seamonsters (1985)
• The Imperial Way
• Riding The Iron Rooster (1988)
• To The Ends Of The Earth
• The Happy Isles Of Oceania (1992)
• The Pillars Of Hercules
• Sir Vidia's Shadow (1998)
• Fresh Air Fiend
• Dark Star Safari

External link

• Fan site
• Peace Corps biography of Paul Theroux
• Audio Interviews with Paul Theroux - RealAudio

This content from Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Paul Theroux