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I can’t stay long by Laurie Lee

I can’t stay long by Laurie Lee

Words Danni Landa

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English journalist, poet and wanderer Laurie Lee depicts the island, its inhabitants and adventurers before the advent of mass tourism.

In this collection of essays, British journalist, poet and inveterate wanderer, Laurie Lee, weaves through a lifetime of travel via whimsical prose and a sharp eye for detail. The piece entitled, Ibiza High Fifties, depicts the island, its inhabitants and a gaggle of wayward adventurers as it was well before the advent of mass tourism.

Arriving after a six-hour ferry ride from Mallorca, Lee describes Ibiza town as having a ‘commanding but scratch-me-down look – a broody old citadel squatting plumply on a rock and trailing feather-white slums into the water. Save for the occasional sea-mists it has extraordinary clarity and if Greek would be hymned for its light. Politically Spanish, emotionally Catalan, and pagan-Catholic by nature, it is otherwise nothing but itself – which is something history has never defined.’ By this stage, Lee has become a die-hard cynic but at least one with a great turn of phrase.

Published by Penguin Modern Classics. Paperback copies and e-books are available to order online at the link below.