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Travel and tell. Narrative strategies for the travel writer
BOOK REVIEW
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Author: Juliana González-Rivera From the reader report by: Rafael Falasco
Viajar y contarlo is a book about travel literature. Based on a broad literature review, the author creates a synthesis of the genre, the ways of building its discourse, the structural elements, and the problems surrounding writing. She also reflects on the book’s circulation and success as a phenomenon. Approaching the narrative strategies of travel literature with the experience-based chronicle and journalistic text, as these share referential condition with travel literature, it builds bridges between travelers’ accounts and the practice of news and reporting.
The book is divided into thirteen chapters, in addition to introduction, bibliography, and a section for notes. The chapters cover: travel as news, traveling chronicles, truths and lies in traveler’s accounts, the traveler as translator, and travel as testimony, among others. The book proposes a systematization of narrative strategies of travel writing and the rhetoric of its discourse, as well as techniques to provide veracity and accuracy, the textual resources used, intertextuality, and the handling of sources.
The work has the potential to be included in collections devoted to history, literature, or readers interested in travel and its accounts. In addition to its commercial potential of broad readership for publishers concerned with offering quality and quick reading non-fiction books, its translation also entails potential for university courses in literature, history, and journalism.
PUBLISHED IN NEW SPANISH BOOKS BR
UNIVERSITAT DE BARCELONA
Title
TRAVEL AND TELL. NARRATIVE STRATEGIES FOR THE TRAVEL WRITER Viajar y contarlo. Estrategias narrativas del escritor viajero
Author Juliana González-Rivera Pages 212
ISBN 978-84-91683-35-3 Year of publication 2019 Number of editions 1 Language Spanish Spanish retail price 18.00 €
Author’s biography: Juliana González-Rivera has a doctorate in journalism from the Complutense University, Madrid, and specialises in travel literature. As a cultural journalist, she has written for several media outlets in Spain and Latin America, such as, El País, Etiqueta Negra, Arcadia, El Malpensante, El Colombiano, El Mundo, Otra Parte and Altaïr. She has experience in cinema and radio, and teaches journalism and writing, new digital media, and the history of art and culture. Her nomadic lifestyle has led her to travel through more than forty countries and she has lived in Madrid, Bogotá, Medellín, Barcelona and Stockholm. She is the author of the essay La invención del viaje. La historia de los viajes que cuentan el mundo (The invention of travelling. The history of travels that tell of the world 2019).
Synopsis: Why and for whom do we tell stories of our travels? Do we travel and then tell stories or travel in order to tell stories? How have travel stories been told in fiction and reference literature throughout time? These are some of the questions answered in this book, an intense piece of writing that submerges the reader in the journeys of great travellers from Herodotus, Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, Ida Pfeiffer and Alexander von Humbolt, to Ryszard Kapuścinski, Peter Mathiessen and Karen Blixen to name but a few. The author shows us how, due to its high documentary value, travel writing has its origins in journalism, chronicling and reporting and reveals the common strategies shared by travel writers throughout history. As with all travel writing, within these pages, the reader will find an invitation to take to the road.
Publisher: Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona is an academic and cultural publisher based in Barcelona. Our catalogue (edicions.ub.edu) comprises more than 1,800 items currently in print and has been recognised through various prizes awarded over the last few years.
Publishing rights available from: Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona - CIF Q0818001J Adolf Florensa 8 - 08028 BCN, Barcelona, Barcelona www.edicions.ub.edu Contact: Joachim De Nys [drets.edicions@ub.edu] Phone: (+34) 934 035 442
Reviews and prizes: This work was published in the collection Periodismo Activo (Active Journalism). The collection won the 2018 National prize for university publishing for the best essay collection awarded by the Union of Spanish University Publishers (Unión de Editoriales Universitarias Españolas: UNE).
