In praise of ... Jan Morris

[muriel_volestrangler]

For Americans who may not have heard of her, Jan Morris is probably the best known transsexual in Britain. To mark her 80th, The Guardian has chosen her for its daily "In Praise Of ..." editorial. She is an excellent writer, though, it seems, more or less retired by now.

One of Jan Morris' collections of essays is Pleasures of a Tangled Life - a perfectly appropriate title for a writer who has traversed continents, genres and genders, as well as decades. Today she celebrates her 80th birthday, marked by the launch of an overdue Festschrift - "besotted valentines", according to Paul Theroux in his introduction - that touches on her extraordinary breadth and remarkable personal history.

Her memoir Conundrum tells the story of how the soldier who served in Palestine and Italy during the second world war as James Morris, gradually and irrevocably became Jan Morris. After the war Morris worked as a journalist of great distinction, scooping the world in reporting the conquest of Everest by Hillary and Tensing in 1953 for the Times, and, as a war correspondent for the Guardian, providing the first evidence that the Anglo-French forces invading Suez in 1956 were acting in concert with Israel.

But it is as an author that Morris is best known today, for works such as her Pax Britannica trilogy, on the rise and fall of the British Empire, which deftly refashioned conventional history into narrative. Most notably, though, she is one of the great pioneers of modern travel writing, displaying quirkiness, cultural curiosity and evocation in her essays and books. Those include her proudly nationalistic The Matter of Wales, alongside her brilliant work Venice - both examples of what the Times Literary Supplement once described as the "peculiar luxury" of reading her work.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,,1885208,00.html

Biography: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/profile/profile_jan_morris.shtml

[BrklynLiberal]

1. I do remember her story. It was quite dramatic and big news at the time.

[bif]

2. Her book on Venice is incredible.

Actually, all her books are incredible.

[swimmernsecretsea]

3. I'd first heard of her when I read her article in Esquire

documenting her transexual surgery and the transitionary period after. I must've been in my early teens. It impressed me that she wrote about her life with such directness and candor. I read her travel books later. Beautifully written works.