Jason Wilson

W. H. Hudson was brought up on the pampas, where he learnt from gauchos about frontier life. After moving to London in 1874, Hudson lived in extreme poverty. Like his friend Joseph Conrad, Hudson was an exile, adapting to England. He never returned to Argentina. Wilson unravels Hudson’s English dream, his natural history rambles, and his work to protect birds. He remains both a complex witness to his homeland before mass immigration and to his England of the mind, before the urban sprawl. Praise for Jason Wilson: Tireless, shrewd, erudite Jason Wilson, mixing hard fact and anthology, provides the perfect outfit of allusion and comparative experience - Jonathan Keates, ObserverPut his treasure trove into your pocket. - Anthony Sattin, Sunday TimesThe idea is so simple that it must be original. This inaugural book might prove to be a landmark. - Nicholas Shakespeare, Daily Telegraph

In his introduction, guest editor Andrew McCarthy says that the best travel writing is "the anonymous and solitary traveler capturing a moment in time and place, giving meaning to his or her travels." The stories in The Best American Travel Writing 2015 demonstrate just that spirit, whether it is the story of a marine returning to Iraq a decade after his deployment, a writer retracing the footsteps of humanity as it spread from Africa throughout the world, or looking for love on a physics-themed cruise down the Rhone River. No matter what the subject, the writers featured in this volume boldly call out, "Yes, this matters. Follow me " The Best American Travel Writing 2015 includes Iris Smyles, Paul Theroux, Christopher Solomon Patricia Marx, Kevin Baker, Benjamin Busch, Maud Newton Gary Shteyngart, Paul Salopek, and others ANDREW MCCARTHY, guest editor, is the author of the New York Times best-selling travel memoir The Longest Way Home. He has served as an editor at large at National Geographic Traveler and been named travel journalist of the year by the Society of American Travel Writers. He is also an actor and director. JASON WILSON, series editor, is the author of Boozehound: On the Trail of the Rare, the Obscure, and the Overrated in Spirits and the digital wine series Planet of the Grapes. He has written for the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the Philadelphia Daily News, and many other publications. He is the founding editor of The Smart Set and Table Matters.

The making of a great Chilean poet. Pablo Neruda was without doubt one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century. However, his work is extremely uneven, and long. The companion examines the view that there are two Nerudas, an early Romantic visionary and a later Marxist populist, who denied his earlier poetic self. By focussing on the poet's apprenticeship, his struggle to read and incorporate French poetry and travel abroad and by looking closely at how Neruda created his poetic persona within his poems, this companion tries to establish what should survive of his massive output. By seeing his early work as self exploration through metaphor and sound, as well as through varieties of love and direct experience,the companion outlines a unity behind all the work, based on voice and a public self. This companion studies Neruda's debt to reading and books in depth and re-examines his change in poetics by concentrating on the early work up to Residencia en la tierra I and II and why he wanted to become a poet. Many critics have argued that some kind of critical assessment must be made in order for Neruda's later work to be read. This companion grounds this debate about quality and representativity in his Romantic thinking, sensibility and sincerity. Unlike a Borges or a Paz who accompanied their creative work with analytical essays, Neruda distilled all his experiences into hispoems, which remain his true biography. Jason Wilson is Professor Emeritus at University College London.

The seeds of irreverent humour that inspired the likes of Wayne and Shuster and Monty Python were sown in the trenches of the First World War, and The Dumbells - concert parties made up of fighting soldiers - were central to this process. Soldiers of Song tells their story. Lucky soldiers who could sing a song, perform a skit, or pass as a ""lady,"" were taken from the line and put onstage for the benefit of their soldier-audiences. The intent was to bolster morale and thereby help soldiers survive the war. The Dumbells' popularity was not limited to troop shows along the trenches. The group also managed a run in London's West End and became the first ever Canadian production to score a hit on Broadway. Touring Canada for some twelve years after the war, the Dumbells became a household name and made more than twenty-five audio recordings. If nationhood was won on the crest of Vimy Ridge, it was the Dumbells who provided the country with its earliest soundtrack. Pioneers of sketch comedy, the Dumbells are as important to the history of Canadian theatre as they are to the cultural history of early-twentieth-century Canada.

The Andes form the backbone of South America. Irradiating from Cuzco the symbolic 'navel' of the indigenous world the mountain range was home to an extraordinary theocratic empire and civilization, the Incas, who built stone temples, roads, palaces and forts. The clash between Atahualpa, the last Inca, and the illiterate conquistador Pizarro, between indigenous identity and European mercantile values, has forged Andean culture and history for the last 500 years. Jason Wilson explores the 5,000-mile chain of volcanoes, deep valleys and upland plains, revealing the Andes' mystery, inaccessibility and power through the insights of chroniclers, scientists and modern-day novelists. His account starts at sacred Cuzco and Machu Picchu, moves along imagined Inca routes south to Lake Titicaca, La Paz, Potosi and then follows the Argentine and Chilean Andes to Patagonia. It then moves north through Chimborazo, Quito and into Colombia, along the Cauca valley up to Bogota and then east to Caracas. Looking at the literature inspired by the Andes as well as its turbulent history, this book brings to life the region s spectacular landscapes and the many ways in which they have been imagined. DRAMATIC SCENERY AND EVENTS: the mythic peaks of Chimborazo and Aconcagua; the ruins of Machu Picchu and the fabled mines of Potosi; plane crashes, earthquakes and high-altitude cities; guerrilla war from Tupac Amaru to Che Guevara and Sendero Luminoso. INDIGENOUS CULTURE AND RESISTANCE: the Inca empire; conquest and oppression; Quechua, Aymara and Mapundungu languages; coca, quinoa and potatoes; the political renaissance and migration to the cities. WRITERS, EXPLORERS AND MUSICIANS: the Spanish chroniclers; Humboldt and Darwin; Pablo Neruda, Vargas Llosa and Francisco Vallejo; indigenous music and urban popular culture.

The making of a great Chilean poet. Pablo Neruda was without doubt one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century but his work is extremely uneven. There is a view that there are two Nerudas, an early Romantic visionary and a later Marxist populist, who denied his earlier poetic self. By focussing on the poet's apprenticeship, and by looking closely at how Neruda created his poetic persona within his poems, this Companion tries to establish what should survive of his massive output. By seeing his early work as self exploration through metaphor and sound, as well as through varieties of love and direct experience, the Companion outlines a unity behind all the work, based on voice and a public self. Neruda's debt to reading and books is studied in depth and the change in poetics re-examined by concentrating on the early work up to Residencia en la tierra I and II and why he wanted to become a poet. Debate about quality and representativity is grounded in his Romantic thinking, sensibility and sincerity. Unlike a Borges or a Paz who accompanied their creative work with analytical essays, Neruda distilled all his experiences into his poems, which remainhis true biography. Jason Wilson is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Spanish and Latin American Studies, University College London.

The most European of South American cities, Buenos Aires evokes exile and nostalgia. A nineteenth-century replica of Paris or Madrid set adrift in an alien continent, its identity is neither of the Old World nor the New. The city's rootlessness has famously found expression in the melancholy of tango and, more recently, in a vogue for psycho-analysis even more widespread than New York's. Jason Wilson explores this contradictory and culturally rich city by tracing its development from remote settlement to modern metropolis. Taking landmarks, both well-known and hidden, as starting-points for a journey of discovery, he looks at the events, people and writing which have shaped modern Buenos Aires and its cultural life. The city of Borges and Cortazar: the European literary tradition, magical realism and fantasy, the construction of an Argentine voice. The city of tango: the music of longing and despair, a meeting-point of machismo and sensuality, lowlife culture of the port. The city of passions: the cult of Evita Peron, the life-and death matter of football, the totalitarian political legacy