By Rolf Potts
As a travel writer, it was interesting for me to learn that contemporary travel literature is now dead — at least, according to an article by Edward Marriott in this month’s Prospect magazine (U.K.). “All the paths ahead seem to have disappeared,” Marriott writes. “With many younger writers of travel turning to history, biography or fiction, the genre has never felt so redundant.” Marriott, who has written travel books such as The Lost Tribe and Wild Shore, goes on to tie the death of travel writing into his own career: “Looking back, I can see that the author of The Lost Tribe — a reckless na
