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Jonathan Raban (born 14 June 1942, Hempton, Norfolk, England) is a British travel writer, critic, and novelist. He has received several awards, such as the National Book Critics Circle Award,[1] The Royal Society of Literature's Heinemann Award,[2] the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award,[3] the PEN West Creative Nonfiction Award,[4] the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award,[5] and a 1997 Washington State Governor's Writer's Award.[6] Since 1990 he has lived with his daughter in Seattle.[7] In 2003, his novel Waxwings was long listed for the Man Booker Prize.

This biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification. (August 2010)

Jonathan Raban
Jonathan Raban, 2013
Born	(1942-06-14) 14 June 1942 (age 80) Hempton, Norfolk, England
Nationality	British
Occupation	Writer

Though he is primarily regarded as a travel writer, Raban's accounts often blend the story of a journey with rich discussion of the history of the water through which he travels and the land around it. Even as he maintains a dispassionate and often unforgiving stance towards the people he meets on his travels, he does not shirk from sharing his own perceived foibles and failings with the reader. Frequently, Raban's autobiographical accounts of journeys taken mirror transformations in his own life or the world at large: Old Glory takes place during the buildup to Ronald Reagan’s victory in the 1980 presidential election, Coasting as the Falklands War begins, and Passage to Juneau as the failure of the author’s marriage becomes apparent. Similarly melancholic and personal themes of turmoil and loss can be detected in his novels.

Bibliography

This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (February 2011)

Books

• The Technique of Modern Fiction (1968)
• Mark Twain: Huckleberry Finn (1968)
• The Society of the Poem (1971)
• Soft City (1974), ISBN 0-525-20661-2
• Arabia Through the Looking Glass (1979), ISBN 0-00-654022-8
• Old Glory: An American Voyage (1981), ISBN 0-671-25061-2
• Foreign Land (1985), ISBN 0-670-80767-2
• Coasting (1986), ISBN 0-00-272119-8
• For Love & Money: A Writing Life, 1968-1987 (1989), ISBN 0-06-016166-3
• God, Man and Mrs Thatcher: A Critque of Mrs Thatcher's Address to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland (1989), ISBN 0-06-016166-3
• Hunting Mister Heartbreak: A Discovery of America (1990), ISBN 0-002-72031-0
• The Oxford Book of the Sea (1992), ISBN 0-19-214197-X
• Bad Land: An American Romance (1996), ISBN 0-679-44254-5
• Passage to Juneau: A Sea and Its Meanings (travel writing; 1999), ISBN 0-679-44262-6
• Waxwings (2003), ISBN 0-375-41008-2
• My Holy War: Dispatches From the Home Front (2006), ISBN 1-59017-175-6
• Surveillance (2006), ISBN 978-0-375-42244-7
• Driving Home: An American Journey (2011), ISBN 978-0-307-37991-7

Essays and reporting

• "Belt, boots and spurs : Jonathan Raban on his father's flight to Dunkirk". London Review of Books. 39 (19): 35–41. 5 October 2017.

Book reviews

Year	Review article	Work(s) reviewed
2010	"Cameron's crank". London Review of Books. 32 (8): 22–23. 22 April 2010.	Blond, Phillip (2010). Red Tory : how Left and Right have broken Britain and how we can fix it. Faber.

Awards

• Heinemann Award, 1982
• Thomas Cook Travel Book Award, 1981 and 1991
• National Book Critics Circle Award, 1996
• The Stranger newspaper "Genius Awards", 2006 Article

Inspiration and writing style

• Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
• Summer Lightning by P. G. Wodehouse
• Put Out More Flags by Evelyn Waugh
• The Whitsun Weddings and High Windows by Philip Larkin
• Collected Poems by Robert Lowell

Mr. Raban's ... style ... can be described as a sort of English Capote: vivid, funny, accurate, full of hyperbolic wit and outrageous metaphor; no reticence at all. But at least as important is the author's ability to make an instant connection with virtually any human being whomsoever. Noel Perrin, The New York Times

Notes

External links

• Campbell, James (20 September 2003). "Northern Exposure". The Guardian. London.
• "Meet the Writers". Barnes & Noble. Archived from the original on 12 May 2007.
• "Jonathan Raban at London Review bookshop". www.cityofsound.com. 28 August 2003.
• Owen Wozniak (2006). "Jonathan Raban: Home and Away". Loggernaut.
• "Review of "Driving Home"". The Daily.
• Internet Movie Database, IMDb, Raban as a newsreader, Jonathan Raban
• Raban author page and archive from The New York Review of Books

Articles

• “In the wild West the improbable is always possible” Pacific North West 26 September, 2004
• 'Battleground of the Eye' Atlantic Monthly 1 March 2001 pp 40–52
• 'Granny in the Doorway', London Review of Books 17 August 2017 pp 41–43
• ‘I felt pretty happy that I was still alive’, The Guardian 30 December 2016 [1]

Interviews

• The Arts Fuse (6 Mar 2007) – Interview with Jonathan Raban about the Critical Condition and his novel, Surveillance
• University of Washington, Upon Reflection – Video interview with Jonathan Raban about his book on immigrants in Montana, Badlands
• Hitler's Coming; Time for Cocktails and Gossip interview with Jonathan Raban on National Public Radio series 'You must read this' re Evelyn Waugh’s Put Out More Flags. 1 July 2008

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