Interview with Rory MacLean

In conversation with Tim Hannigan in Dorset on 2 October 2017, and updated by email in November 2020, Rory MacLean discusses his long travel writing career, from the publication of Stalin’s Nose in 1992, to Pravda Ha Ha in 2019. He explains how his background in the film industry informed his approach to travel writing, in the use of dialogue and character. He discusses his practice of using fictional devices in nonfiction books, and its potential for promoting empathy with travellees. He also considers the possibilities and challenges of narrating travel writing in the third person, as in his second book, The Oatmeal Ark (1997), and discusses the technical and ethical issues involved in creating composite characters. He also considers the contrast between his narrative books, with their fictionalised elements, and his recent collaborations on documentary projects with Nick Danziger.