The first drips of what will surely become a flood of publicity for Under the Sun: The Letters of Bruce Chatwin are beginning to fall.

Nicholas Shakespeare writes a typically eloquent piece recounting his journey to Athos in search of the rusted metal cross which inspired Chatwin’s conversion to the Orthodox faith:

‘One afternoon after his usual maté (mistaken by the cook for hashish), Chatwin walked to the monastery of Stavronikita, once painted by Edward Lear. He puffed towards it with his heavy rucksack. “The most beautiful sight of all was an iron cross on a rock by the sea,” he wrote. From where he stood – just below the monastery – the black cross appeared to be striving up against the white foam.
Then these words: “There must be a god.”’

Another more perfunctory - though positive - review of the book from the Irish Times can be find here.

I’ll be posting articles here as they come through, but please feel free to forward any you think I might have missed using the contact form.

Under the Sun: The Letters of Bruce Chatwin is published by Jonathan Cape, and will be released in the UK on September 1st 2010.