For Theroux, travel is continuity and this unique collector’s edition preserves his original journey while also contemplating it from a new perspective. There is the moment when Machu Picchu is revealed in all its startling beauty Ecuadorean Indians weighed down by their bundles and the terrifying trestle bridge on the FEGUA railway in Guatemala. The book is a valuable snapshot of the Americas in the seventies and a collection of 24 carefully researched colour photographs – many previously unpublished – capture some of the remarkable places so eloquently described. The destinations and the author have changed significantly and, on rereading his work for the first time in 43 years, Theroux discovered an ‘opinionated but fairly confident and sometimes homesick young man’, while some of the places he visited have since become unrecognisable. Specially commissioned for this edition, Theroux’s new introduction is a fascinating retrospective on the journey and the person he was when he undertook it.
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