'I'd like to interview places,' writes A A Gill in his first
collection of travel writings. 'To treat a place as if it were a
person, to go and listen to it, ask it questions.' Gill, a
columnist for the Sunday Times and writer for GQ, is a razor-sharp
observer, capturing with evocative detail and biting humour the
very essence of some of the world's worst places: the desperate
Sudan, the barren Aral Sea, the bleak, poverty-stricken city of
Kaliningrad. Gill is famed for his excoriating wit, and he uses it
to brilliant effect in his condemnation of corrupt Third World
governments and the Western attitudes that support them. India, he
argues, is attractive because of its poverty. Poverty is what makes
the place and the people; it's what you go to see, and if it
bothers you, allow yourself to be ripped off. 'The most cynically
embarrassing thing to hear... is that the poverty is terrible but
"do you like my shawl? I managed to beat him to half the price".'
On three continents he rants about pharmaceutical companies versus
the need to cure disease, following orphaned, tuberculosis-infected
seven-year-olds around Kara-Kalpakstan or watching sleeping
sickness victims in Uganda receive arsenic injections because the
Western company that created the drug that can cure them refuses to
continue its manufacture. When not railing against the political
injustice spread across the world, Gill is having a ball in
Patagonia, writing a porno film in Los Angeles and lusting after
voluptuous Cuban women. These episodes are hilarious, but it is his
expeditions to the poorest parts of the world that really engage
the reader. With all his tough talk, Gill is strongly affected by
what he sees and experiences. Deep in the Serengeti on a safari
with a family of Spanish sherry heirs, Gill is accosted by the
Afrikaaner hunter. 'You're falling in love with this place,' he
says. 'Africa... will haunt you. Because it's where it all began.
This is where we all come from. This is where we started. You've
come home.' The truth in these words provides a bright spark of
hope and warmth in an often depressing but superbly written
collection. (Kirkus UK)
'Theatre, food, refugees: in Adrian's writing they're all linked up
... If you haven't read his book AA GILL IS AWAY, read it now. It
was when he was away that he was at his best' Stephen Daldry A. A.
Gill was probably the most read columnist in Britain. Every weekend
he entertained readers of the SUNDAY TIMES with his biting
observations on television and his unsparing, deeply knowledgeable
restaurant reviews. Even those who objected to his opinions agree:
his writing is hopelessly, painfully funny. He was one of a tiny
band of must-read journalists and it was always a disappointment
when the words 'A.A. Gill is away' appeared at the foot of his
column. This book is the fruit of those absences: twenty-five long
travel pieces that belie his reputation as a mere style-journalist
and master of vitriol: this is travel writing of the highest
quality and ambition.
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