Paul Theroux (born 1941) was an expatriate American writer of numerous works of fiction and of the chronicles of his own travels by train throughout the world. He was a keen observer of the relationships between people and their environments.

Paul Theroux was a professional outsider. The expatriate American author of three travel books, four books of short stories, and almost a dozen novels, Theroux used his own sense of not belonging to show how others try to get along away from home. His sense of irony often revealed as much about the wayfaring author as about his subjects.

Born April 10, 1941, in Medford, Massachusetts, the third of seven children, Theroux was of French-Canadian/Italian descent. His brothers and sisters, all independent, were all encouraged to write by their father, a salesman who read aloud from Charles Dickens and Herman Melville. At an early age Theroux and two of his...