Description: Poetry. Asian & Asian American Studies. Travel. In January of 2015, school teacher Tony Chan gave up his job and embarked on a 78-day, 1,400-mile solo-trek across the four extreme points of mainland Britain, writing a sonnet on each day of the journey from Dunnet Head to Ardnamurchan Point and from Lowestoft Ness to Lizard Point. These sonnets--raw and unedited after their composition--serve as a travelogue in the spirit of Bill Bryson as Chan journeys through the mundane, the ethereal, and the points between.
Brief description: Tony Chan is a former football coach and schoolmaster who spent many years teaching English and Latin at Stowe. In his late twenties, seeking a higher experience of life, he entered--as he playfully terms it himself--the 'adventuring phase' of his life: trekking up Mount Kilimanjaro and joining passels of pilgrims on the Camino de Santiago. These explorations were the foundation stones for his Four Points walk. Born in Hong Kong, raised in Australia, and now settled in Britain, much of his work deals with the confluence of national identities.