In the years since his death from AIDS, Bruce Chatwin s reputation as a story-teller has grown and his books have continued to attract and inspire readers all over the world. At the same time there has been an increasing awareness that it was through his life and death that he created his ultimate story, a self-mythology based on a mixture of truth and fantasy. Journalist and traveller, devoted husband and active gay, glamorous socialite and single-minded loner, Chatwin condensed many lives and contradictions into his 48 years. In 1991 Nicholas Shakespeare was given unrestricted access to Chatwin s private notebooks, diaries and letters. Since then he has interviewed hundreds of friends, relations and enemies, and travelled through five continents in his footsteps. He has uncovered the Chatwin behind the masks, and has written a fascinating and definitive biography of one of the most elusive and charismatic literary figures of our time.