Bruce Chatwin, The Viceroy of Ouidah, 1980

Chatwin originally intended to write a biography of the 19th Century slave trader Francisco Felix da Souza, but instead turned his research into a work of fiction about a similar Brazilian adventurer, one who sought to control the slave trade that ran through Dahomey’s port city. Chatwin instead was able to produce something that is richly imagined, leaving out very little in terms of atmospheric detail that is somehow able to seep off the page, while at the same time the written tone remains both terse and compelling. The story itself does take time to get going and I found it necessary to re-read the anachronistic first chapter to completely understand the context and perspective of the whole book, which is otherwise completely memorable.  PY

Bruce Chatwin, Utz, 1988

Chatwin was often brought to book for his over-embellishment of the lives of living people so it’s likely that the slippery character of the late Czechoslovakian porcelain collector Kaspar Utz has been subjected to the same fate, though this time it seems Chatwin is a little more careful to conceal his characters’ real identities. Utz was a man of a minor European nobility, figuratively imprisoned by his collection of rare Messein porcelain, and Chatwin ultimately portrays him as a rather sad figure. It’s hard to tell the degree of artistic licence he took with his last novel, but certainly there are passages in which he lets his imagination take flight about Utz’s annual visits to Vichy in France. It’s also a cautionary tale for collectors of whatever stripe and there’s no denying it reads exceptionally well too, whatever amount of fictionalising Chatwin may have indulged in. Recommended.   PY

•  Utz was shortlisted for the 1988 Booker Prize.