Since ancient times the traveller’s eye/I has been influenced by the landscape and the inextricable presence of the Other. Along the same line, in many popular romance fiction novels it is usually assumed that evocative scenery, along with the heroine’s inner journey and cross-cultural encounters in foreign lands, will be present. As noted by Pico Iyer, “every trip to a foreign country can be a love affair, where you’re left puzzling over who you are and whom you’ve fallen in love with” (2000). This apparent conflict appears to be ubiquitous in both travel writing and popular romance fiction. This paper will explore how travel writing plays a vital role within contemporary romance fiction novels set in the Canary Islands, with an emphasis on how both genres have shared a historical kinship which has been evident in recent decades.
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