As many of you know, last week (Nov. 13-19) was Transgender Awareness Week. So it is perhaps fitting that Jan Morris, one of the most famous transgender figures in history, died on Nov. 20 at the age of 94. Matt Schudel's Washington Post obituary describes her beautifully: "Jan Morris reported on wars and revolutions around the globe, published dozens of elegant books exploring far-flung places and times, and was regarded as perhaps the greatest travel writer of her time. Yet the most remarkable journey of her life was across a private border, when she cast off her earlier identity as James Morris and became Jan Morris."
We have not read any of her many books (yet), but her 1974 memoir Conundrum (reissued in 2006 with a new introduction by the author) sounds intriguing. Here, from the New York Times, are an obituary and a tribute. Here is The Economist's obituary. And here is a tribute by a fellow travel writer in the Dec. 13 Washington Post.
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