Jonathan Raban: his travel writing could pierce your heart

Author Philip Marsden on how Raban, who has died aged 80, brought us his darkly comic and sardonic view of the world

• Jonathan Raban, travel writer and novelist, dies aged 80

Jonathan Raban, who has died this week at the age of 80, was one of a generation of writers who helped to drag travel writing away from its hotel-reviewing, holiday-brochure corridor and into the halls of literature. Colin Thubron, Paul Theroux, Redmond O’Hanlon and Bruce Chatwin were among those (almost all men) who in the late 1970s and early 1980s resurrected the journey as one of the great narrative structures. They produced books that celebrate big ideas, remote places and the endless and ageless diversity of our planet. In Raban’s case, he did it with a view of the world that was both darkly comic and sardonic, delivered in prose that can pierce your heart with its accuracy.

As well as his travel books, Raban wrote dazzling essays and criticism, spotting writers’ weaknesses but always relishing success when he saw it on the page. John Updike “comes to grip with the contrary fabric of things with a kind of intelligent wonder”. Byron “had a genius for turning his entire life into a grand retrospective exhibition”.