Tim Butcher
Tim Butcher (born 15 November 1967) is an English journalist, broadcaster and best-selling author. Born in Rugby, Warwickshire, England, he was educated at Rugby School, and Magdalen College, Oxford University.
He is the author of Blood River and Chasing the Devil, travel books blending contemporary adventure with African history.
Blood River: A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart is an account of his 2004 journey through DR Congo overland from Lake Tanganyika and down the Congo River, following the route of Henry Morton Stanley's 1874–77 trans-Africa expedition. The book was published by Chatto & Windus, an imprint of Random House, in 2007 and reached Number 1 in the Sunday Times bestseller list in March 2008. Translated into six languages, Blood River was the only non-fiction title in the Richard & Judy Book Club 2008 and was shortlisted that year for a number of top British writing awards including the Samuel Johnson Prize, the UK's most prestigious non-fiction literary award, the Dolman Best Travel Book Award and the Writers' Guild of Great Britain Best Book award. The book’s Polish version, Rzeka Krwi (Translated by Jakub Czernik and published in 2009 by Carta Blanca) was longlisted for the 2010 Ryszard Kapuściński Prize, Poland’s top award for literary reportage.
Chasing the Devil: The Search for Africa’s Fighting Spirit, published by Chatto & Windus in 2010, describes a 350 mile trek he made through Sierra Leone and Liberia following a trail blazed by Graham Greene, a trip immortalised in Greene's first travel book, Journey Without Maps, published in 1936. Tim made a number of discoveries concerning Greene: establishing the identity, lost for decades, of the colonial officer libelled so seriously in Journey Without Maps that the first edition of the book had to be pulped, finding numerous factual errors in Greene's writing and showing that Greene exaggerated significantly the duration of his trip. Chasing the Devil was released in September 2010 and was longlisted for the 2011 Orwell Prize.
Between 1990 and 2009 Tim was on the staff of The Daily Telegraph, holding a series of positions including leader writer, war correspondent, Africa Bureau Chief and Middle East Correspondent. He is a regular contributor to the prestigious BBC radio programme From Our Own Correspondent and has written for numerous British, US and international publications.
In 2009 Tim wrote a chapter for Because I Am a Girl, a charitable compilation of stories focusing on the plight of young women and girls in the developing world. Published in January 2010 by Vintage, an imprint of Random House, the book was the brainchild of a Plan International, a leading children’s rights aid group. He also contributed a chapter to Ox Travels, another compilation, this time on behalf of Oxfam, the international confederation working against poverty and injustice, which was released in May 2011.
In 2009, Tim was made a member of the Global Stewardship Group, a joint initiative between The Desmond Tutu Peace Centre and Humanity United, an American philanthropic society. In 2010 he was made Patron of Save The Congo, a British-based charity and in 2011 Patron of AMECA, a healthcare charity working in Africa. In 2011 he visited the United States as an ambassador for Merlin, Medical Emergency Relief International.
In February 2010 he received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Northampton in the United Kingdom for service as a journalist and author. Tim lives in Cape Town with his family.
[edit] References
- Blood River official website
- Tim Butcher at The Daily Telegraph
- Solo in the Congo, Review of Blood River by Geoff Wisner, Wall Street Journal (2008)
- Tim Butcher speaks with Fiona Sze-Lorrain/Greta Aart, Interview on Emprise Review, October 2008
- Podcast of Tim Butcher speaking at the 2008 Samuel Johnson Prize event in London about Blood River (2008) Bookbuffet.com
- Amanda Ross on Why Blood River Did Well in the Richard & Judy Book Club
