The death of the American dream: how sex workers and anarchists inspired the year's best new travel book
A portrait of America as seen by a British hitchhiker towards the end of the Obama administration has been chosen as the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year. Julian Sayarer wins £5,000 for Interstate (Arcadia Books), which documents a journey he made in 2013 from New York to San Francisco, after a job fell through and he took “that all-American option of drifting aimlessly west… as if better things wait there”.
His is a book, though, that’s mainly concerned with those who are being denied better things; with what he describes as the “human shrapnel” and “neoliberal carnage” of the American dream: cross-country truckers driving for a cent a mile; sex workers in parking lots addled by methamphetamine; anarchists who have given up on society and headed for the Appalachian hills. It’s a book that’s pessimistic about America and Americans, but relieved by occasional encounters that keep optimism alive. One is with a big-hearted Punjabi truck driver, a recent immigrant, who drove Sayarer 2,000 miles, and who was sure he could build a better future in the United States.
The book, published last autumn and dedicated “For the immigrants”, seems prophetic in the wake of Donald Trump’s election as president and the current controversy over “fake news”. The author found Americans disenchanted with conventional parties and politicians; and in one passage he observes that “fabricating statistics falls right at the heart of modern America… Truth is only a sensation, accuracy a tyrannical imposition of bureaucrats.”
Fabricating statistics falls right at the heart of modern America… Truth is only a sensation, accuracy a tyrannical imposition of bureaucrats
Julian Sayarer
Sayarer beat off competition from more established names on the short list, among them Paul Theroux with a book about the American South. The travel writer and biographer Sara Wheeler, who led the judging panel, said: “The decision was unanimous. Sayarer is a brilliantly thoughtful writer with no shortage of passion and anger. As befits the story of a road trip, the prose is the opposite of pedestrian: it is challenging and enigmatic – its power derives in part from what is left out. One can’t help thinking that the future of travel writing lies in this adventurous, post-modern genre.”
Sayarer, who is in his early thirties, was born in London, the son of a Turkish father and an English mother, and grew up near Leicester. Since graduating in politics from the University of Sussex he has made something of a specialism of reporting on the world from the roadside. His first book, Life Cycles, tells the story of his 2009 Guinness world record for a circumnavigation of the world by bicycle, a project which he has described as a protest against the corporatisation of sport and human endeavour. Messengers recounts his following three years working as a cycle courier in London.
The Stanford Dolman prize, formerly the Dolman prize — after the Rev William Dolman, a member of the Authors’ Club, who had been sponsoring it through the club since 2006 — was rebranded in 2015 and is now the centrepiece of a scheme run by the bookseller Stanfords and named after its founder: the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards.
Among other awards made tonight at a dinner at Olympia in London was one to Michael Palin, the comedian and television presenter, for an outstanding contribution to travel writing (though his books have been written as companions to television series). It was handed over by the adventurer Levison Wood, who himself collected a prize for the Wanderlust Adventure Travel Book of the Year for Walking the Himalayas (Hodder & Stoughton).
Winners in other categories were:
National Book Tokens Children’s Travel Book of the Year
Atlas of Animal Adventures by Lucy Letherland, Rachel Williams and Emily Hawkins (Wide Eyed Editions)
Specsavers Fiction (with a sense of place)
Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien (Granta)
Food and Travel Magazine Food and Travel Book of the Year
Provence to Pondicherry: Recipes from France and Faraway by Tessa Kiros (Quadrille)
Destinations Show Illustrated Travel Book of the Year
The Un-Discovered Islands: An Archipelago of Myths and Mysteries, Phantoms and Fakes by Malachy Tallack, illustrated by Katie Scott (Polygon)
London Book Fair Innovation in Travel Publishing
Where the Animals Go: Tracking Wildlife with Technology in 50 Maps and Graphics by James Cheshire and Oliver Uberti (Particular Books)
Bradt Travel Guides New Travel Writer of the Year
Dom Tulett
Lonely Planet Pathfinders Travel Blog of the Year
The Enjoyable Rut by Lauren Williams
See the full shortlist for the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year
