author
Evelyn Saxton
A sharp-eyed chronicler of life around the Panama Canal, this early 20th-century writer turned travel and observation into lively, often humorous stories. Her best-known work offers a vivid glimpse of the Isthmus during a period of huge change.
1 Audiobook
Droll stories of Isthmian life
by Evelyn Saxton
About the author
Very little biographical information about Evelyn Saxton is easy to confirm from reliable online sources. What can be confirmed is that she wrote Droll Stories of Isthmian Life, a collection centered on experiences in Panama during the era of canal construction.
The surviving descriptions of her work consistently present her as an American writer with firsthand knowledge of the Isthmus. Her stories are remembered for their mix of local color, everyday detail, and humor, with attention to the people and conditions surrounding life in Panama.
Because so few dependable biographical records are readily available, Saxton is best introduced through the writing itself: a lively, historically interesting window into a place and moment that fascinated readers then and still does now.