About this ebook
Foreword by Robert Macfarlane: 'A magnificent feat'
Jan Morris - then James - first visited Trieste as a young soldier at the end of the Second World War. She was beguiled by its hallucinatory magic; its wistful melancholy; its enigmatic changeability.
Half a century later, this unique city on the Adriatic became a symbol of her own life, with all its hopes, loves and disappointments. Whether meandering along the waterfront or experiencing the street life, her musings on an eclectic range of subjects - cities, seas, cats, exile, sex, empires, civility and kindness - are inspired by the presence of Trieste, and recorded in or between the lines of her meditative tribute.
Evoking its rich layers of history, from its rise to wealth and fame under the Habsburgs, through years of Fascist rule to the Cold War - starring famous visitors from James Joyce to Sigmund Freud - Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere is neither a history nor a travel book: like the place, and the author, it is truly one of a kind.
'Among the finest descriptive writers who has ever lived . . . An ineffable talent' Sara Wheeler
Jan Morris - then James - first visited Trieste as a young soldier at the end of the Second World War. She was beguiled by its hallucinatory magic; its wistful melancholy; its enigmatic changeability.
Half a century later, this unique city on the Adriatic became a symbol of her own life, with all its hopes, loves and disappointments. Whether meandering along the waterfront or experiencing the street life, her musings on an eclectic range of subjects - cities, seas, cats, exile, sex, empires, civility and kindness - are inspired by the presence of Trieste, and recorded in or between the lines of her meditative tribute.
Evoking its rich layers of history, from its rise to wealth and fame under the Habsburgs, through years of Fascist rule to the Cold War - starring famous visitors from James Joyce to Sigmund Freud - Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere is neither a history nor a travel book: like the place, and the author, it is truly one of a kind.
'Among the finest descriptive writers who has ever lived . . . An ineffable talent' Sara Wheeler
Foreword by Robert Macfarlane: 'A magnificent feat'
Jan Morris - then James - first visited Trieste as a young soldier at the end of the Second World War. She was beguiled by its hallucinatory magic; its wistful melancholy; its enigmatic changeability.
Half a century later, this unique city o...
Ratings and reviews
2 reviews
Simon M
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June 16, 2015
This beautiful, lyrical travelogue about an underappreciated and fascinating place was my steadfast guide to the city, as well as my poetic pleasure. Jan Morris's prose is an object lesson in both economy and decoration, managing to be direct and informative whilst always elegant and often mellifluous. The book paints an honest portrait of a mixed-up place, and it never glorifies it. What lies here is a book telling you why Trieste is interesting, and weird, not simply boasting of its brilliance. Do not visit Trieste, or indeed read this book, in search of transcendent paradise: Instead expect and enjoy an engaging, beautiful oddness, that Morris herself calls 'The Trieste Effect'.
About the author
Jan Morris was born in 1926. Soldier, journalist, historian, author of forty books, she witnessed the first ascent of Everest, Suez Canal Crisis, Eichmann Trial, Cuban Revolution and so much more. She was the celebrated author of many bestselling works of travel writing, autobiography and diaries, including modern classics Coronation Everest, Venice, Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere, the Pax Britannica trilogy and Conundrum. She spent her last years with her partner Elizabeth Morris in Wales, where she died in 2020.
Jan Morris was born in 1926. Soldier, journalist, historian, author of forty books, she witnessed the first ascent of Everest, Suez Canal Crisis, Eichmann Trial, Cuban Revolution and so much more. She was the celebrated author of many bestselling works of travel writing, autobiography and diaries...
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