Home and Away

1993

The first major collection of travel pieces from the bestselling author of Stolen Continents reveals the world to us—from Belize to Egypt—in all it’s comedy, strangeness and humanity. Home and Away is a marvellous mix of adventure and observation, antique civilizations, contemporary politics and irresistible storytelling.

Time Among the Maya: Travels in Belize, Guatemala, and Mexico

1989

The Maya of Central America have been called the Greeks of the New World. In the first millennium A.D., they created the intellectually and artistically advanced civilization of the Americas. Throughout the ensuing centuries, as neighbouring empires fell in warfare and to the Spanish invasion, the Maya endured, shaken but never destroyed.

In Time Among the Maya, Ronald Wright’s journey takes him not only to the land of the Maya, but also among the five million people who speak Maya languages and preserve a Mayan identity today. His travels begin in tiny Belize, exploring the jungles and mountains of Guatemala, bloodstained by civil war, and end in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. Embracing history, politics, anthropology, and literature, this book is both a fascinating travel memoir and the study of a civilization.

On Fiji Islands

1986

As Ronald Wright observes, societies that do not eat people are fascinated by those that do—or did. Known for years as the “Cannibal Islands”, the Fiji Islands are now an archipelago of cultures that flourish despite the invasion of colonizers and the modern world. A gifted writer—acutely observant, witty, and eclectic—Wright explores the exotic islands and the reasons for Fiji’s success.

Cut Stones and Crossroads: A Journey in Peru

1984

Travelling through Peru, tracing the history of the Incas from their royal cities of Cusco and Machu Picchu to their mythical origin in Lake Titicaca, Ronald Wright explores a country of contrasts—between Spanish and Indian, past and present, coastal desert and mountainous interior.

In his highly entertaining and perceptive account, Wright brings to life a complex culture, a land of ancient traditions seeking its place in the modern world. Embracing history, politics, anthropology and literature, Cut Stones and Crossroads is both a fascinating travel memoir and the study of a civilization by a writer who has won international awards as both a novelist and historian.