Robert Byron
Robert Byron (born February 26, 1905 in London , † February 24, 1941 on the Atlantic ) was a British writer and photographer.
Life
Byron studied at Oxford and developed knowledge of art and architecture history on his own initiative. He made trips to mainland Europe and the Orient . His first book Europe in the Looking-Glass from 1926 is about an arduous drive on bad roads through Europe to Greece. In the following three books he praises the culture of the Byzantine Empire . Before his 1933 work First Russia, Then Tibet , he traveled through the European part of Russia and then for six months with the Trans-Siberian Railway through Central Asia . His last and most famous work is the travelogue The Road to Oxiana , published in 1937 . Byron's only fictional 1935 book Innocence and Design is a light satire on Persia .
On February 20, 1941 he left Liverpool on board the Jonathan Holt for West Africa on the way to Persia to work there as a war correspondent. West of the Faroe Islands , his ship was sunk on February 24, 1941 by the German submarine U 97 , whereby Byron was killed.
For the travel writer Bruce Chatwin , who wrote the foreword to a new edition of The Road to Oxiana , Byron's visit to Persia and Afghanistan in the 1930s is the best book of all time.
Works
-
Europe in the Looking Glass. Reflections of a Motor Drive from Grimsby to Athens . 1926
- German: Europa 1925. Translated by Peter Torberg , Other Library, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-8477-0373-0 .
-
The station. Travels to the Holy Mountain of Greece. 1928 (2011)
- German: Mount Athos. Trip to Greece . Translated by Niklas Hoffmann-Walbeck, Other Library, Berlin 2020, ISBN 9783847704225
- The Byzantine Achievement . 1929
- Together with David Talbot Rice : Birth of Western Painting. A History of Color, Form, and Iconography. G. Routledge, 1930
- An Essay on India . 1931
- The Appreciation of Architecture . 1932
- First Russia, Then Tibet . 1933
- Published with Christopher Sykes under the pseudonym Richard Waughburton: Innocence and Design. 1935
-
The Road to Oxiana. Visiting Persia and Afghanistan. 1937; German editions:
- Persian trip. On the way to ancient cultures in Persia, Afghanistan and Turkestan. Safari, Berlin 1948 (with drawings by Günter Liedtke)
- The way to Oxiana. Eichborn, Frankfurt 2004, The Other Library series , ISBN 3-8218-4520-1
- Imperial pilgrimage . ( London in your pocket series , Volume 1) London Passenger Transport Board, London 1937
- Letters Home . Published by Lucy Butler. John Murray, London 1991
Web links
- Literature by and about Robert Byron in the catalog of the German National Library
- Short biography and reviews of works by Robert Byron at perlentaucher.de
Remarks
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Byron, Robert |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British writer |
DATE OF BIRTH | February 26, 1905 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | London |
DATE OF DEATH | February 24, 1941 |
Place of death | on the Atlantic |