cheryl
Administrator
Staff member
Book clinic: has social media killed travel writing? - The Guardian
Our expert answers with a resolute no, and issues a challenge to the Twitter generation
Is travel writing dead in the age of social media?
Charu Gupta, India
Sara Wheeler, biographer and author of travel books including Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica, writes:
Charu, no! Travel writing is all about observational detail, which can’t really be captured in social media. The writer gets a longer run at it in pieces or books – the marathon as opposed to the sprint. If you suggest that travel writing is dead in the age of social media, you might as well say that the novel has expired now that you can make up a sentence on Twitter.
Travel writing will always have a place in the world, even now that all the journeys have been done. Social media by necessity has to grab the instant message, but the best travel writing captures the beautiful ordinariness of the everyday. Don’t you find daily life unbearably poetic?
Our expert answers with a resolute no, and issues a challenge to the Twitter generation
Is travel writing dead in the age of social media?
Charu Gupta, India
Sara Wheeler, biographer and author of travel books including Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica, writes:
Charu, no! Travel writing is all about observational detail, which can’t really be captured in social media. The writer gets a longer run at it in pieces or books – the marathon as opposed to the sprint. If you suggest that travel writing is dead in the age of social media, you might as well say that the novel has expired now that you can make up a sentence on Twitter.
Travel writing will always have a place in the world, even now that all the journeys have been done. Social media by necessity has to grab the instant message, but the best travel writing captures the beautiful ordinariness of the everyday. Don’t you find daily life unbearably poetic?