Robert Byron lecture

The second lecture discussed the way travel writing was traditionally about exploration on a social, internal and global scale. 

Researching a travel writer, writing a short biography about him or her and then sharing with the rest of the class was great as we each had an insight into writers who, like me, have a passion for travel. I researched Robert Byron during the lecture, and so being intrigued and exercising having a sense of place, a quality a travel writer should have, thought to further research him when at home. And so, without saying any more, here’s the short biography I wrote about him:-

Born in Wembley, Middlesex, 26^th February 1905, Robert Byron was a British travel writer, most famously known for his travelogue ‘The Road to Oxiana’.

Also a noted writer, art critic and historian, he travelled all around the globe, visiting Tibet and Mount Athos to name a few.

It was in Persia and Afghanistan that he found the subject around which he formed his style of modern travel writing. As a journalist for London’s Daily Express, Byron is remembered for his travel narratives. His appreciation of architecture and his role as a forceful advocate for the preservation of historic buildings is clearly demonstrated and reflected throughout his work.

His work of the 1920s and 1930s inspired Bruce Chatwin, another travel writer, and was one of the first people to warn about Nazis unleashing horrors, so headed to Egypt as a special war correspondent.

Byron came to his death in 1941 during the second world war, when the ship he was travelling on was torpedoed by a U boat off Cope Wrath, Scotland.