Author Guide · Travel Writing & Fiction
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In 1973 Paul Theroux, then an American novelist in his early thirties living in London, boarded a train in London and kept going east, on the Direct-Orient Express, the Khyber Mail, the Mandalay Express and the Trans-Siberian, before coming home the long way. The book he wrote about it, The Great Railway Bazaar (1975), sold well, set off a boom in travel writing and turned him into the writer most people know. He had already been a Peace Corps teacher in Malawi, expelled in 1965, and a lecturer in Uganda and Singapore. Since then he has alternated between journeys and novels, among them The Mosquito Coast (1981), and in 2024 he published his 57th book. This guide covers his 14 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 14 key books · 1973–2024 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Paul Theroux’s best-known books are The Great Railway Bazaar (1975), The Old Patagonian Express (1979), the novel The Mosquito Coast (1981) and Dark Star Safari (2002). Start with The Great Railway Bazaar, the train journey across Asia that made his name; below are the other 13 key books and a reading path through them.
Where to Start with Paul Theroux
If you want the book that made his name
→ The Great Railway Bazaar (1975) — London to Japan and back by train.
If you want his best-known novel
→ The Mosquito Coast (1981) — an American inventor drags his family into the Honduran jungle.
If you want Africa, where he started
→ Dark Star Safari (2002) — Cairo to Cape Town overland, back to where he once taught.
If you want something recent
→ On the Plain of Snakes (2019) — a road trip across Mexico at 76.
14 Paul Theroux Books, in Order
Saint Jack
Jack Flowers, an American stranded in Singapore, works as a ship’s chandler and runs a sideline as a pimp, dreaming of making his fortune. Theroux had taught at the university there for two years. The novel was banned in Singapore for about 30 years, and Peter Bogdanovich filmed it in 1979.
The Great Railway Bazaar
An account of a four-month rail journey in 1973 from London through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, India, South-East Asia and Japan, returning on the Trans-Siberian. The book is built from the people he met in compartments and dining cars, and from his own irritations as much as the scenery. It was a critical and commercial success and is often credited with starting the travel-writing boom of the late 1970s and 1980s.
Picture Palace
Maude Coffin Pratt, a celebrated photographer in her seventies, looks back over her career while preparing a retrospective, and the pictures she never showed anyone reveal a family secret. It won the Whitbread award for best novel in 1978.
The Old Patagonian Express
Theroux takes the commuter train from his parents’ home near Boston and keeps going south by rail through the United States, Mexico, Central America and the Andes to Patagonia. In Buenos Aires he spends several evenings reading aloud to the blind Jorge Luis Borges. It was a nominee for the American Book Award.
The Mosquito Coast
Allie Fox, an inventor who despises modern America, moves his wife and children from Massachusetts to the Mosquito Coast of Honduras to build a self-sufficient life in the jungle, and his ambition turns into tyranny. The story is told by his eldest son, Charlie. Peter Weir filmed it in 1986 with Harrison Ford, Helen Mirren and River Phoenix, and Apple TV+ made a series in 2021 starring Theroux’s nephew Justin Theroux.
The Kingdom by the Sea
After eleven years living in London, Theroux walked and took local trains around the entire coast of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in 1982, the summer of the Falklands War. The portrait of seaside towns in decline was not always welcome in Britain.
Riding the Iron Rooster
A year crossing China by train in the mid-1980s, as the country opened up after Mao, ending with a drive into Tibet. Theroux records the officials, minders and fellow passengers who travel with him. It won the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award in 1989.
The Happy Isles of Oceania
After the break-up of his first marriage, Theroux took a collapsible kayak across the Pacific, from New Zealand and Australia through Melanesia, Polynesia and on to Hawaii, paddling between islands. It is one of his darkest and most personal travel books.
Sir Vidia’s Shadow
A memoir of his thirty-year friendship with V. S. Naipaul, from their meeting in Uganda in 1966 to its abrupt end. In 1972 Theroux had published an admiring study of Naipaul’s work; this book portrays him as cruel and misogynistic, and was widely read as an act of revenge.
Dark Star Safari
An overland journey by bus, truck, train and boat from Cairo through Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe to Cape Town. Theroux returns to Malawi and to Makerere University in Uganda, where he once taught, and argues that decades of foreign aid have bred dependence rather than self-reliance.
Ghost Train to the Eastern Star
Some thirty years later, Theroux retraces the journey of The Great Railway Bazaar east from London, rerouting where borders and wars made the old route impossible, including through Turkmenistan. The book compares the countries, and the traveller, with what they were in 1973.
Deep South
Four road trips, one in each season, through the small towns of Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and South Carolina. After a career spent travelling abroad, Theroux drives his own car through his own country, looking at poverty, race and the churches of the rural South.
On the Plain of Snakes
At 76, Theroux drove from his home on Cape Cod down to Mexico and on to Chiapas, its southernmost state. Along the way he takes Spanish classes in Oaxaca, teaches a writing workshop in Mexico City and meets Subcomandante Marcos of the Zapatistas.
Burma Sahib
A historical novel about Eric Blair, the young Etonian who would become George Orwell, during his five years as a police officer in colonial Burma in the 1920s. It follows his growing disgust with the empire he serves and draws on episodes Orwell later used in Burmese Days and “Shooting an Elephant”.
In What Order to Read Paul Theroux
None of Theroux’s books continue from one another, so you can read them in any order. The travel books do fall into a sequence, though: the long rail journeys of the 1970s and 1980s, the more personal trips of the 1990s, and the late books in which he goes back to places he knew, first Africa, then his own route of 1973, then America and Mexico.
Reading The Great Railway Bazaar and Ghost Train to the Eastern Star together shows how both the countries and the writer changed over thirty years. The novels stand alone; The Mosquito Coast is the obvious first, and Burma Sahib rewards readers who know Orwell.
A reading path
1. The Great Railway Bazaar (1975)
2. The Mosquito Coast (1981)
3. The Old Patagonian Express (1979)
4. Dark Star Safari (2002)
5. Sir Vidia’s Shadow (1998)
Everything Else Paul Theroux Published
Beyond the 14 key books: 40 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Novels
23
23 books · 1967–2022
- 1967Waldohis first novel
- 1968Fong and the Indiansset in East Africa
- 1969Girls at Playteachers at a girls’ school in Kenya
- 1969Murder in Mount Hollya short comic novel
- 1971Jungle Loversset in Malawi, where it was banned for years
- 1974The Black Housean anthropologist returns to England from Africa
- 1976The Family Arsenalterrorists in south-east London
- 1979London Snowa short novel
- 1984Doctor Slaughterfilmed as Half Moon Street (1986)
- 1986O-Zonea dystopian novel
- 1989My Secret Historya writer’s double life
- 1990Chicago Loopa novel
- 1993Millroy the Magiciana novel
- 1996My Other Lifea novel in the form of a memoir
- 1997Kowloon TongHong Kong before the 1997 handover
- 2001Hotel Honolulua novel
- 2005Blinding Lighta novel
- 2007The Elephanta Suitethree novellas set in India
- 2009A Dead Handa crime in Calcutta
- 2012The Lower Rivera return to Malawi
- 2017Mother Landa family novel
- 2021Under the Wave at Waimeaan ageing surfer on Oahu
- 2022The Bad Angel Brotherstwo brothers on Cape Cod
Short stories
7
7 books · 1972–2025
- 1972Sinning with Anniestories
- 1977The Consul’s Filelinked stories set in Malaysia
- 1980World’s Endstories
- 1982The London Embassylinked stories
- 1997The Collected Stories
- 2003The Stranger at the Palazzo d’Orostories
- 2025The Vanishing Pointstories
Travel, essays and criticism
10
10 books · 1972–2018
- 1972V. S. Naipaul: An Introduction to His Workcriticism
- 1983Sailing Through Chinashort travel book
- 1985Sunrise with Seamonstersessays and travel pieces
- 1985The Imperial Wayby train from Peshawar to Chittagong
- 1985Patagonia Revisitedwith Bruce Chatwin
- 1995The Pillars of Herculesaround the Mediterranean
- 2000Fresh Air Fiendtravel writings
- 2011The Tao of Travelan anthology of travel writing
- 2013The Last Train to Zona VerdeSouth Africa to Angola overland
- 2018Figures in a Landscapeessays on people and places
The years · 1941–2024
Quick facts about Paul Theroux
- Known for
- Paul Theroux is known for long overland journeys, by train above all, written up as opinionated travel books, and for novels set in the places he lived and travelled.
- 1941
- Born in Medford, Massachusetts
- 1963
- Peace Corps teacher in Malawi
- 2002
- Dark Star Safari
- 2024
- Burma Sahib, his 57th book
- Born
- 10 April 1941, Medford, Massachusetts
- Education
- University of Massachusetts Amherst, BA in English, 1963
- Africa and Asia
- Peace Corps teacher in Malawi from 1963, expelled in 1965; then taught at Makerere University, Uganda, and in Singapore
- Lives
- Moved to London in 1972; now lives on the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii, and spends time on Cape Cod
- Family
- His sons are the writer Marcel Theroux and the broadcaster Louis Theroux; the actor Justin Theroux is his nephew
- Prizes
- Whitbread Novel Award (1978), James Tait Black Memorial Prize (1981), Thomas Cook Travel Book Award (1989)
- Honours
- Patron’s Medal of the Royal Geographical Society (2015)
The red mark is 1975: The Great Railway Bazaar, the train journey across Asia that made his name.
How Paul Theroux Writes: Travel as Fiction’s Other Half
Theroux travels slowly and on the ground: trains, buses, a kayak, his own car. He avoids planes where he can and writes about the journey rather than the destination, so the books are made of encounters — the people in the next seat, the meals, the delays.
He writes travel books with a novelist’s tools: characters drawn in a few lines, dialogue, quotations from the writers who went before him. He is openly opinionated and often irritable, which some readers have found flippant or unkind; he has rejected the label of curmudgeon. He also reveals surprisingly little about his own life, even when the trip follows a personal crisis, as in The Happy Isles of Oceania.
The novels draw on the same places. Malawi gave him Jungle Lovers and The Lower River, Singapore Saint Jack, London The Family Arsenal, Hawaii Hotel Honolulu and Under the Wave at Waimea. Their recurring figure is the outsider abroad, usually an American, often someone whose idea of escape turns out to be a trap, like Allie Fox in The Mosquito Coast.
Frequently asked questions about Paul Theroux’s books
How many books has Paul Theroux written?
More than fifty-five. Burma Sahib (2024) was his 57th book, and a story collection, The Vanishing Point, followed in 2025. This page covers 14 key books; the rest, mostly novels, story collections and shorter travel books, are listed under Everything Else.
What are Paul Theroux’s books in order?
The key books are Saint Jack (1973), The Great Railway Bazaar (1975), Picture Palace (1978), The Old Patagonian Express (1979), The Mosquito Coast (1981), The Kingdom by the Sea (1983), Riding the Iron Rooster (1988), The Happy Isles of Oceania (1992), Sir Vidia’s Shadow (1998), Dark Star Safari (2002), Ghost Train to the Eastern Star (2008), Deep South (2015), On the Plain of Snakes (2019) and Burma Sahib (2024).
Where should I start with Paul Theroux?
The Great Railway Bazaar (1975), the train journey from London across Asia and back that made his name. If you prefer fiction, start with The Mosquito Coast (1981).
What is Paul Theroux’s most famous book?
The Great Railway Bazaar is his most famous travel book. Of his novels, The Mosquito Coast is the best known, helped by the 1986 film with Harrison Ford.
Has The Mosquito Coast been adapted?
Twice. Peter Weir directed the 1986 film, written by Paul Schrader, with Harrison Ford, Helen Mirren and River Phoenix. In 2021 Apple TV+ launched a television series starring Justin Theroux, Paul Theroux’s nephew. Saint Jack (1979) and Doctor Slaughter, as Half Moon Street (1986), were also filmed.
Why did Paul Theroux and V. S. Naipaul fall out?
The two met in Uganda in 1966 and were close for about thirty years. The friendship ended abruptly; Theroux has described finding books he had inscribed to Naipaul for sale in a dealer’s catalogue. His memoir Sir Vidia’s Shadow (1998) portrayed Naipaul as cruel and misogynistic. The two shook hands at the Hay Festival in 2011.
Why was Paul Theroux expelled from Malawi?
He joined the Peace Corps in 1963 and taught in Malawi. He helped a political opponent of the prime minister, Hastings Banda, escape to Uganda, and was expelled from the country and from the Peace Corps in 1965.
Is Paul Theroux related to Louis Theroux?
Yes. The broadcaster Louis Theroux and the novelist Marcel Theroux are his sons, from his first marriage. The actor Justin Theroux is his nephew.
What prizes has Paul Theroux won?
The Whitbread Novel Award for Picture Palace (1978), the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for The Mosquito Coast (1981) and the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award for Riding the Iron Rooster (1989). The Royal Geographical Society gave him its Patron’s Medal in 2015.
Is Paul Theroux still alive?
Yes. He was born on 10 April 1941 in Medford, Massachusetts, and lives on Oahu, Hawaii, and on Cape Cod. His most recent books are Burma Sahib (2024) and The Vanishing Point (2025).
Footnotes
- Paul Theroux — Library (official site)
- The Great American Travel Book — The American Scholar, 2025
- A Bend in the Feud — Open, 2015
- Dark Star Safari — The Complete Review
- Burma Sahib — Kirkus Reviews, 2024
- The Mosquito Coast: what we know — Looper, 2021
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“Ever since childhood, when I lived within earshot of the Boston and Maine, I have seldom heard a train go by and not wished I was on it.”
— Paul Theroux, The Great Railway Bazaar (1975), the first line
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