The most foreign country is within: Jan Morris
‘Elusive … thank goodness’: the writer Jan Morris
ALAMY, KATHY DEWITT
Her new biographer Sara Wheeler says Morris “was the twentieth century”. It is a reminder that Morris was present at many of the last century’s key inflexion points.
IT IS CLICHÉ of the hoariest kind: distance lends enchantment. It may also grant perspective and perspective offers the pleasing appearance of unity. The close-up may bring a plethora of sharp detail, but risks blurring the whole. The dynamic between close attention and wide-angle appreciation is, I suspect, one of the biographer’s abiding challenges. It is surely a key consideration for anyone who wishes to write about the remarkable, elusive life of soldier, travel writer, reporter, trans woman and Welsh nationalist, Jan Morris.
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