Paul Edward Theroux is an American travel writer and novelist, whose best known work is
The Great Railway Bazaar (1975), a travelogue about a trip he made by train from Great Britain through Western and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, through South Asia, then South-East Asia, up through East Asia, as far east as Japan, and then back across Russia to his point of origin. Although perhaps best known as a travelogue writer, Theroux has also published numerous works of fiction, some of which were made into feature films. He was awarded the 1981 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel
The Mosquito Coast.
He is the father of
Marcel and
Louis Theroux, and the brother of
Alexander and
Peter. Justin Theroux is his nephew.