The writer, Michael Jacobs died in January, 2014. Michael was prolific and published articles and books about many topics - art history, architecture, food - but mostly, travel. He travelled extensively, but became ever more interested in Hispanic countries. Living between Spain and London, he returned again and again to South America.
His family and friends have set up The Michael Jacobs Foundation with the intention of promoting travel writing - especially on Hispanic themes. The Foundation, in partnership with Hay Festivals and the Fundación Gabriel García Márquez para el Nuevo Periodismo Iberoamericano (Fundación Gabo), offers an annual grant of $10,000, The Michael Jacobs Travel Writing Prize.
El escritor Michael Jacobs murió en enero de 2014. Fue un escritor prolífico que público numerosos artículos y libros sobre temas muy variados, desde historia del arte, arquitectura, gastronomía y sobre todo sobre viajes. Viajó por todo el mundo pero se sintió muy interesado por los países de habla española. Vivió a caballo entre España y Londres , con continuas escapadas a América del Sur.
Su familia y amigos han creado la fundación que lleva su nombre con la intención de promover la literatura de viajes, especialmente de temas hispánicos. La Fundación Michael Jacobs, en colaboración con el Hay Festival y la Fundación Gabo ofrece una beca anual con el premio Michael Jacobs de literatura de viajes, de 7.500 dólares.
Translated by Juan Antonio Diaz Lopez
About Michael Jacobs
“Travel literature can enhance our understanding of the world in a unique way. Having the potential to span so many different forms of writing—from fiction to autobiography, from journalism to history—it allows authors to explore ideas and disciplines with a freedom that would not be possible within a more academic context.”
This is what Michael Jacobs had to say about the great passion to which he dedicated a great portion of his life: travel writing. Jacobs was born in Italy in 1952, spent his youth in England, and later traveled to different parts of the world, investigating and writing about Spain and Latin America. He became a notable Hispanist and a passionate devotee of Spanish culture.
Although he studied art history at the Courtauld Institute, he decided to leave behind that career to write. After writing several books on art, he published Andalucía, the first of many books dedicated to this region of Spain. He later took up residence in a small town called Frailes in the province of Jaén, the subject of The Factory of Light: Tales From My Andalucian Village, an account of his first five years in this village of two thousand people.
In 2003 he published Ghost Train Through the Andes, a tale of his journey through Chile and Bolivia, recreating his grandparents’ love story on a train trip across the Andes, between Antofagasta and Potosí.
Michael Jacobs’s appeal in the Spanish-speaking world was so great that the small town of Frailes became his Macondo. Perhaps that explains why the day that he met Gabo at the Cartagena Hay Festival affected his life. They spoke about Gabo’s memories of the Magdalena River, an obsession of Jacobs’s. That meeting with García Márquez moved the Englishman to travel the waterway the next year, a journey recorded in his book The Robber of Memories. This book is not only a portrait of the most important fluvial artery in Colombia but also a nostalgic reminiscence of his relationship to his parents and his childhood.
Today Jacobs is a global benchmark when it comes to travel writing and his work is a staple of travel writing canons. Michael Jacobs passed away in London on January 11, 2014, leaving behind an unmatched and evocative legacy.
Selected bibliography
- Andalucía
- Between Hopes and Memories: A Spanish Journey
- In the Glow of the Phantom Palace: Travels between Granada and Timbuktu
- The Factory of Light: Tales from my Andalucian Village
- Ghost Train Through The Andes
- The Robber of Memories