Keynote Speaker

Friday, July 24

Paul Theroux, one of America’s literary lions, has produced more than 47 books of travel writing, short-story collections, novels, criticism and children’s literature. Theroux is widely acclaimed as the nation’s most renowned travel writer - the quintessential explorer with an instinct for noticing the odd, compelling detail. Nobel Prize-winner Nadine Gordimer calls Theroux “a large, lively, outrageous talent.”

Readers depend on his uncompromising, sometimes brazen reportage, his witty, acerbic asides and the tremendous breadth of literature he brings to his work. Theroux received the American Academy and Institute of Arts & Letters Award for literature in 1977, the Whitbread Prize for his novel Picture Palace (1978), and the James Tait Black Award for The Mosquito Coast (1982), which was also nominated for the American Book Award along with his earlier travel book The Old Patagonian Express: By Train through the Americas (1979).  His novels Saint Jack, The Mosquito Coast, Doctor Slaughter,  and Half Moon Street have been made into films. And his short-story collection, London Embassy,  was adapted for a British mini-series in 1987. With the publication of The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train through Asia, and continuing with The Old Patagonian Express, Theroux established himself as America’s foremost travel writer. Other travel books by Theroux include The Kingdom by the Sea, Sailing Through China, Riding the Iron Rooster, and Dark Star Safari, Overland from Cairo to Cape Town, a revisit of Africa and his Peace-Corps past 40 years earlier. 

Born in Medford, Massachusetts, Theroux began his travels in earnest after graduating from the University of Massachusetts in 1963.  He joined the Peace Corps in Malawi, Africa. Theroux eventually ended up teaching English at the Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, where he met and befriended the distinguished writer V.S. Naipaul. The bitter disintegration of their close relationship was chronicled in Theroux’s Sir Vidia’s Shadow (1988).  Theroux has also authored two children’s books, seven short-story collections, and has published nonfiction in a variety of magazines, including TIME, Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, GQ, Talk and Esquire.