Fiction writing, and the reading of it, and book buying, have always been the activities of a tiny minority of people, even in the most-literate societies.

His novel The Mosquito Coast was made into a film of the same name (1986). While there Theroux helped a political opponent of Prime Minister Hastings Banda escape to Uganda. He has since written a number of other travel books including descriptions of traveling by train from Boston to Argentina (The Old Patagonian Express) walking around the United Kingdom (The Kingdom By The Sea) kayaking in the South Pacific (The Happy Isles Of Oceania) visiting China (Riding the Iron Rooster) and traveling from Cairo to Cape Town (Dark Star Safari).

He is the father of British authors and documentary makers Louis Theroux and Marcel Theroux the brother of authors Alexander Theroux and Peter Theroux and uncle to the American actor and screenwriter Justin Theroux. Paul Edward Theroux (born April 10 1941) is an American travel writer and novelist whose best known work of travel writing is perhaps The Great Railway Bazaar (1975).