Sydney

Renowned and much-loved travel writer Jan Morris turns her eye to Sydney: ‘not the best of the cities the British Empire created … but the most hyperbolic, the youngest at heart, the shiniest.’ Sydney takes us on the city’s journey from penal colony to world-class metropolis, as lively and charming as the city it describes. With characteristic exuberance and sparkling prose, Jan Morris guides us through the history, people and geography of a fascinating and colourful city.

Jan Morris’s collection of travel writing and reportage spans over five decades and includes such titles as Venice, Hong Kong, Spain, Manhattan ’45, A Writer’s World and the Pax Britannica Trilogy. Hav, her novel, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Arthur C. Clarke Award.

‘Sydney should be flattered. A great portrait painter has chosen it for her recent subject . . . Few writers – a handful of novelists apart – have got so far under the city’s skin as Morris . . . Few Sydneysiders could match her knowledge of their city’s history and its anecdotes’ The Times

‘The writing is, at times, like surfing: sentences rise like vast waves above which she rides, never overbalancing into gush . . . Jan Morris convincingly explains modern Sydney through its history’ Observer