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In 1957, Naomi Mitchison enjoyed two months 'of observation and thought' as she travelled in parts of postcolonial West Africa. She was the guest of friends new and old and, in Ghana, stayed at the Press Hotel, in her then role as a correspondent with The Manchester Guardian. Her reflections are presented in chapters - on social bars and classes, language, words, history, religion, morals, education, politics, clothes, art and music - as she pulls together her view of the ways in which 'Other People's Worlds', at different stages of development, impact on one another. 'Perhaps', she concludes, 'it is really everyone's world'.
Fasten your seat belts, for the delights of Naomi Mitchison's 1981 overview of her travel writing from the 1920s onwards. Drawn from her writings as an author, journalist, letter writer and diarist 'Mucking Around. Five Continents over Fifty Years' is the memoir of an enthusiastic traveller and outspoken observer of 'other countries' - that is, countries across the world as visited from Scotland. The accounts are divided into four sections or bearings: South-West-by-North, West-by-East, East-by-South-East and South.
About the author
Naomi Mitchison [1897-1999] was a literary phenomenon. Tireless in her writing, unafraid and often highly unconventional in her opinions, she left an extraordinary legacy. Her novels for adults and children stressed at different times her deep interest in Scottish and African societies, as well her concerns for the future. She also travelled widely, wrote poetry and plays, memoirs, a war diary, book reviews, political articles, and many letters.
