Nigel Barry

Nigel Barley (born 1947) is a British anthropologist and travel writer renowned for turning the trials of fieldwork into affectionate, self-mocking comedy. After training as a social anthropologist, he spent many years in the British Museum's Department of Ethnography, curating ethnographic collections while nursing a growing impatience with academic pomposity. His first book, The Innocent Anthropologist: Notes from a Mud Hut (1983), recounted his chaotic stay among the Dowayo people of northern Cameroon and became an international bestseller, gently exploding the myths of scholarly heroism. Its sequel, A Plague of Caterpillars (1986), extended the joke with equal charm. Further journeys yielded Not a Hazardous Sport (1989), set among the Toraja of highland Sulawesi, and Grave Matters: A Lively History of Death Around the World (1995), a witty cross-cultural study of funerary customs. His other titles include The Duke of Puddle Dock (1992), an irreverent portrait of the British Museum; Fishing in the Styx (2003), a memoir of anthropology and family life; and Island of Demons (2009), a novel inspired by the Belgian painter Le Mayeur's life in Bali. Blending scholarly insight with irresistible humor, Barley has done more than most to make anthropology genuinely enjoyable to read.