Michael Palin takes travel writing prize, hymning genre's open worldview

In a week when the new administration of president Donald Trump in the US has closed the door to travellers from seven Muslim countries, veteran traveller and broadcaster Michael Palin has praised the ability of travel writers to challenge preconceptions and help others understand “why people are so angry”.

Speaking as he was honoured for his outstanding contribution to travel writing with the Edward Stanford award, Palin said: “You have got to understand why people are angry, why people do ridiculous brutal things. Not just Islamic terrorists, I mean, why do so many Americans shoot people in schools? We have to understand where these things come from and travel writing hopefully opens doors, when doors are being closed rather abruptly at the moment.”

He added: “The best travel writing shows us the differences between us and what makes people special. That involves a whole way of looking at the world that is so completely different from the kneejerk reaction we are seeing from Washington at the moment.”

The Monty Python star, who made his name as a travel writer and broadcaster in the 1980s with hit TV series and bestsellers Around the World in Eighty Days and Pole to Pole, said travel books offered a more personal perspective than TV, helping the reader to share the perspective of a traveller, but that he liked working in both media.

“I like the combination of both television and books. I love the fact that my programmes were collaborations and feel upset that my crew, particularly my cameraman Nigel Meakin, never get mentioned and yet 50% of those shots were chosen by him,” Palin said.

Palin received his honour at the Edward Stanford travel writing awards on Thursday night, which saw another veteran writer Paul Theroux and his odyssey through his US homeland, Deep South, beaten to the Stanford Dolman travel book of the year by Julian Sayarer, with his American journey, Interstate.

Throwing down the gauntlet to other writers and publishers present, Sayarer pledged to give half of his winnings to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). He added: “Anyone who wishes to match that amount, I will deal with the administration.”

Chair of judges, travel writer and biographer Sara Wheeler, said Interstate was the jury’s unanimous choice. She described Sayarer, who once held the world record for the fastest circumnavigation of the globe by bicycle, as “a brilliantly thoughtful writer with no shortage of passion and anger”.

Wheeler described Interstate as “challenging and enigmatic – its power derives in part from what is left out. One can’t help thinking that the future of travel writing lies in this adventurous, postmodern genre.”

However, she also lamented the lack of female entries: “No genre can survive without women and if any members of the Garrick Club are present and wish to dispute that, please see me afterwards.”

In the Specsavers fiction (with a sense of place) award, Madeleine Thien’s novel Do Not Say We Have Nothing beat books by Man Booker winners Julian Barnes and Yann Martel. Chair of judges Lyn Hughes, co-founder of Wanderlust magazine, said Thien’s Man Booker-shortlisted novel, set against the backdrop of China’s Cultural Revolution, was “epic and powerful”.

The Wanderlust adventure travel book of the year was taken by Levison Wood for his TV tie-in Walking the Himalayas, an account of his 1,700-mile trek across the roof of the world. The judges said Wood exceeded the achievements of the accompanying TV series, giving the book “a real sense of travel and place”.

The National Book Tokens children’s travel book of the year was named as Atlas of Animal Adventures by Lucy Letherland, Rachel Williams and Emily Hawkins, while food writer Tessa Kiros won the Food and Travel Magazine food and travel book of the year award for “a true culinary travel book”, Provence to Pondicherry: Recipes from France and Faraway.