Travels with a Mexican Circus

Paperback / softback

Main Details

Title Travels with a Mexican Circus
Authors and Contributors      By (author) Katie Hickman
Physical Properties
Format:Paperback / softback
Pages:368
Dimensions(mm): Height 198,Width 129
Category/GenreMemoirs
Travel writing
ISBN/Barcode 9781408853610
ClassificationsDewey:917.20484
Audience
General
Illustrations 1 x 16 page black and white plate

Publishing Details

Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Imprint Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Publication Date 28 August 2014
Publication Country United Kingdom

Description

Katie Hickman went to Mexico looking for magic. She found it in the circus - Big Top, clowns, elephants and all - where cheap, torn materials and tarnished sequins are transformed into nights of glittering illusion. Gradually adjusting to the harsh ways of the circus's nomadic lifestyle, she soon became absorbed into this hypnotic new world, at first as a foreigner but later as 'La Gringa Estrella', a performer in her own right. Travels with a Mexican Circus is an unforgettable account of a year-long journey through an extraordinary and bizarrely beautiful country.

Author Biography

Katie Hickman is the author of several previous books, including history books, travel narratives, and novels. She has been shortlisted for the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award, and for the Sunday Times Young British Writer of the Year award. Hickman lives in London with her two children and her husband, the philosopher A.C. Grayling.

Reviews

A wonderful writer ... An adventure hard to beat in terms of sheer exotic allure * Guardian * A delight... The stories of the cirqueros themselves read like tales by Gabriel Garcia Marquez ... Katie seems as deliberate and calculating as Paul Theroux poring over his railway timetables ... a very good travel book indeed * Harpers & Queen * Mexico will not have been portrayed more vividly since Graham Greene's the Lawless Roads... Enchanting * Daily Telegraph * Magic is at the heart of Hickman's narrative, not just in the fabulous illusions of the acts themselves or the superstitions of the circus people, but in the fantastic stories of the characters she presents * Sunday Times * The most ambitiously imaginative sort of travel writing * Patrick Skene Catling *