The Oxford Book of the Sea

Jonathan Raban was an award-winning travel writer, novelist, and critic. He was born in, Norfolk, England on June 14, 1942. He studied English at the University of Hull. He went on to lecture at Aberystwyth University. Then he taught in the creative writing department at the University of East Anglia.

His early writing was done while on vacation. He wrote fiction and journalism. In 1969, he moved to London and became a freelance writer and journalist, writing book reviews and literary criticism. He felt inspired by his friend, Robert Lowell. Who turned some of his own life experiences into art.

Raban's travel books included Arabia: Through the Looking Glass (1979); Old Glory (1981); Coasting (1986); Hunting Mister Heartbreak (1991); Bad Land: An American Romance (1996); Passage to Juneau (1999); and Driving Home: An American Journey (2011). He wrote three novels, Foreign Land (1985), Waxwings (2003), and Surveillance (2006).

He won many awards, the National Book Critics Circle Award, The Royal Society of Literature's Heinemann Award, the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award, and others.

Jonathan Raban died on January 17, 2023, in Seattle, Washington, of complications from a stroke, which he had in 2011. He was 80.

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