Writing Away - Softcover

Travel writers tend to inject more or less practical detail into their articles; but this collection works by 34 PEN Canada members-including a group of photos from Michael Ondaatje-is delightfully impractical. The range of destinations is wide-Graeme Gibson on eastern Cuba; Isabel Huggan on Banaue, the Philippines; and Janice Kulyk Keefer on Kiev. Destinations are often chosen to get back to the author's roots, either spiritual, ethnic or literary. There is an emphasis on the process of self-discovery, apparent in John Ralston Saul's description of the High Arctic: ``The clarity as I walked out into the whiteness was astonishing. Terrifying. Revealing.'' Even a popular destination such as Paris is seen in unusual perspective: Margaret Atwood recalls her first trip there in the '60s; George Elliott Clarke, seeing it as a black Nova Scotian. When the locale is close to home, it is infused with an intense, personal sensitivity: ``The corn in tassel, the height of summer passing, time opening but with room for ordinary anxieties, weariness, tiffs, triviality,'' muses Alice Munro en route from a neighboring village. Pieces by Nicole Brossard, Robertson Davies, Rohinton Mistry, Ronald Wright and others make for a satisfying and thought-provoking collection.

Copyright 1994 Cahners Business Information, Inc.