Description
Hav gives us Jan Morris at her most delightful and most suggestive. The city is a magical place - yet behind its arcane splendours are darker implications. The traditional Roof Race is peculiarly exciting, the waterfront is picturesque, the wistful call of a trumpeter from a distant rampart is wonderfully evocative, and every street corner is haunted by memories of illustrious visitors - Freud, Diaghilev, Marco Polo, Lawrence of Arabia and countless others. But Morris's visit ends in flight when an unidentified enemy arrives to seize control.
When Jan Morris returns to Hav, some twenty years later, she finds that her account of her earlier visit is banned - and discovers a place that has rebuilt itself, transformed by a new energy and now dominated by a totemic tower 2000 feet tall. But as the old Hav was in many ways an allegory of the last century, so the city in its new incarnation offers no less elusive hints, echoes and portents of our 21st century world. As a destination it remains as entertaining as ever.
When the world's foremost travel writer describes the small city-state of Hav, it is unlike any of her other books. For Hav exists only in one special place - Jan Morris's imagination.
About the Author
Jan Morris was born in 1926 of a Welsh father and an English mother. She spent the last years of her life with her partner Elizabeth Morris in the top left-hand corner of Wales, between the mountains and the sea. Her books include Coronation Everest, Venice, the Pax Britannica trilogy and Conundrum. She was also the author of six books about cities and countries, two autobiographical books, several volumes of collected travel essays and the unclassifiable Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere. In 2018 she was recognised for her outstanding contribution to travel writing by the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards, and published In My Mind's Eye: A Thought Diary.
Reviews
"'A deeply civilised and civilising book.' The Times"
Book Information
ISBN 9780571229840
Author Jan Morris
Format Paperback
Page Count 320
Imprint Faber & Faber
Publisher Faber & Faber
Weight(grams) 250g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 127mm * 20mm
