On the Black Hill is an elegantly written tale of identical twin brothers who grow up on a farm in rural Wales and never leave home. They till the rough soil and sleep in the same bed, touched only occasionally by the advances of the 20th century.
In depicting the lives of Benjamin and Lewis and their interactions with their small local community Chatwin comments movingly on the larger questions of human experience.
About the Author
Bruce Chatwin (1940–1989) was the author of In Patagonia, The Viceroy of Ouidah, On the Black Hill, The Songlines, and Utz. His other books are What Am I Doing Here and Anatomy of Restlessness, posthumous anthologies of shorter works, and Far Journeys, a collection of his photographs that also includes selections from his travel notebooks.
Industry Reviews
"His deepest and best book." - Independent
"Nearly every writer of my generation in England has wanted, at some point, to be Bruce Chatwin; wanted, like him, to talk of Fez and Firdausi, Nigeria and Nuristan, with equal authority; wanted to be talked about, as he is, with raucous envy; wanted above all to have written his books…(he was) a writer no one who cares for literature can afford not to read." - Andrew Harvey, New York Times
"Totally alive... a spellbinding portrayal of the unbreakable link between nature and the human spirit." - Los Angeles Times Book Review
“A masterpiece, a chronicle of ordinary lives told with extraordinary insight.” - St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Scene after scene is brought to life with an enraptured attention that causes them to glow with an almost visionary light.” - The New York Times Book Review
“Remarkable... like a beautiful old quilt, made up of bright vivid patches, with scenes that surprise and delight and seem absolutely true.” - People
“A rare book, one of those splendid evocations of place made so justifiably famous by masters of the British novel in the past century: George Eliot, Hardy, Lawrence.” - Houston Post