Tim Butcher Books In Order

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Vintage Voyages Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Tim Butcher is an award-winning broadcaster, journalist, and bestselling novelist that is best known for his debut novel “Blood River.” The novel was an account of his journey across the Congo as he tried to showcase the region’s turbulent history.

Inspired by John Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness,” the novel would go on to become an international bestselling novel. It would also get nominated for several awards in the United Kingdom.

Some of the awards it won include the Best Book Award by the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain, the Dolman Best Travel Book Award, and the Samuel Johnson Prize. The novel has also been translated into more than half a dozen languages.
Still interested in travel he trekked for more than 350 miles across Liberia following in the footsteps of Graham Greene. On the centenary of the beginning of World War I, he published The Trigger which was his third novel.
As a journalist, Tim worked at awkward times and awkward places as he reported on the conflict in South Asia, the Balkans, Africa, and the Middle East.

He has been writing for a wide range of international publications and for nearly two decades, he worked as a staff writer for the “Daily Telegraph.”

While Tim Butcher’s works are generally classified as travel works, they are more of a combination of exploration, reportage, and travel.

He has always been a person with an insatiable curiosity and a very nosy guy who does not like to box himself. He is drawn to powerful issues across genres and believes the best way to do this is through travel.
Butcher has said that by doing a journey, things such as the legacy of war and political failings which can be very dry tend to come alive. It was this curiosity that led him down the path of becoming a correspondent.
He was always attracted to confrontation and hated the flat and boring stories that journalists often have to do. With confrontation, stories and people are stripped of all artifice, camouflage, and bullshit.
As a war correspondent, he had to report on very raw and pure stories that were sometimes terrifying. For instance, he once had to evacuate a house in 90 seconds grabbing whatever he could and never coming back since the security had been compromised.

This is what drew him to work as a travel and war journalist and author rather than the usual careers of working in spin and politics.

Tim Butcher is usually driven by turning-point stories and often does meticulous research in the archives and on the ground.

For his efforts, his works have been lauded for their clarity and originality as they have shaped a fresh literary genre that straddles politics, travel writing, adventure, and history.

In time for the commemoration of World War I, Tim trekked across Serbia and Bosnia, as he followed in the footsteps of the teenager who was responsible for the start of the first major conflict.

This would result in “Trigger,” a work of discovery that was critically acclaimed and described as riveting and a masterpiece by the New York Times and the Guardian respectively.

Given his background as a journalist, he is also a renowned public speaker and broadcaster. For his work in different theaters as an explorer, he was the winner of the Royal Scottish Geographic Society’s Mungo Park Medal.

For his service to writing, the University of Northampton granted him an honorary doctorate. He currently makes his home in Cape Town where he lives with his wife and children.

“Blood River” by Tim Butcher is a compulsive and thrilling read of the journey into the Congo. This is a country that was at the time practically inaccessible to the world as told by an adventurous and daring journalist.

The Congo was charted by Stanley but the mighty river and the region continued to be epitomized by a turbulent and dark history. It was the region’s troubles that attracted the interest of Tim Butcher a correspondent for the Daily Telegraph.
Butcher went to Africa in 2000 and soon enough he developed an obsession with traveling alone to recreate the original expedition by Stanley. While there were a lot of warnings, Butcher spent years wooing rebel leaders and poring over maps.
He ultimately decided to take the dive and ventured into the eastern border of the Congo. He passed through what were once upon-a-time thriving towns that were ravaged by years of misrule and abuse.

Almost 2500 miles later he had traveled across the Congo and emerged on the Atlantic coast a wiser and thinner man. It was a harrowing journey but still, a remarkable feat recounted with remarkable skill.

Tim Butcher’s novel “The Trigger” is set about 100 years in the past.
Gavrilo Princip is a teenage assassin from Sarajevo that was responsible for firing the opening shots of World War I. He was responsible for taking the shot that had killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand which sparked the largest global conflict ever.
Since the events he sparked were so huge but his role was misrepresented and his motivations garbled, Tim Butcher sets out to make things right. He fleshes out the boy into a man that changed the world and left a legacy that lives on to this day.

He had been born a poor penniless boy in the backwoods but his life changed when he walked across Serbia and Bosnia to go to school. Venturing across fault lines of empire, nationalism, and faith, radicalization slowly transformed him into one of the most influential assassins of his time.

By retracing his journey from a farmboy through the countryside to Belgrade the fortress city and ultimately to Sarajevo, Tim Butcher shines a light on the man and the places which shaped who he was.

“Chasing the Devil” by Tim Butcher is a very personal and fascinating travelogue following the trail of Graham Green and Barbara his cousin that trekked across Liberia in 1935.

This is the same trail that Butcher and Mr. Omaru, Johnson and David a Brit try to follow across the country. Surprisingly, not much has changed and in fact, things in some places are worse after repression and violence, coup, and counter-coup.
All this happens in the midst of short-sighted hypocrisy, corruption, and embezzlement. The country had been ruled by the progeny of freed slaves that had always ruled the land when Greene explored the country in the 1930s.

It was only in 1980 that these corrupt rulers has been ousted through horrendous bloodletting. But Doe the new dictator was no better and was killed paving the path for Charles Taylor, who personally destroyed the spirit and infrastructure of his country.
Through this narrative, Butcher provides insights into the power of organized and corrupt groups that hamstrung the development of Liberia.