Roma

Bridge Over Dry Land

This issue is dedicated to some of the most significant bizarre, atypical figures in Romanian literature. Although it consists of a selection of literary sketches and fragments of novels, it can be best described as an anthology of twentieth-century poetic prose, stretching

Artists-In-Site

Artists are wanderers par excellence. This is the case not only for the itinerant artists of the Middle Ages, those architects, stone-carvers, painters and stained-glass artists that moved their workshops all around Europe, building and embellishing cathedrals here and there.

A Journey Thorugh Somaliland

Sire,Dear Gentlemen and Ladies,The Somalis' Country, of which I have the honour of relating, stretches along the entire East Horn of Africa and is called Bar-as-Somal in the Somali language. The Somalis belong to the Mohammedan religion of the Shafi'ite sect and

In Gibraltar. From A Captain's Log

excerptAbout the Earth's Crust A loud knock on the door of the cabin disturbs my sweet morning sleep. Gibrelterra!… Gibrelterra!… I rub my eyes sleepily and, without understanding anything, I ask stroppily: what is it? what's happened?Gibrelterra!…We can

The Canary Islands, Under The Sign Of The Unreal

The summon sounded imperative, I had positive interests, thank goodness – I was to receive by the hands of professor Cioranescu the second volume of his memoirs - this, as he had no intention of coming to the country this year – moreover, my curiosity was not inconsiderable.

History And Literature In Lisbon

Lisbon, a town whose name comes from the mythical traveler Ulysses – so they say – , illustrated in the Middle Ages by so many navigators and explorers curious and eager for adventure, shows to the visitor first its drowsy side. It is true that I first visited it on

Paris In May

I cannot think of a more fortunate coincidence: this is the first time I have visited Paris in May and the show is extraordinary. I know somebody who keeps a dried chestnut flower between the covers of a notebook, a flower that he has picked up from the sidewalk in Cluny

Discovering Paris

We are stepping in on a realm of legend. My reader undoubtedly knows the thrill of finding himself in places bearing a special aura. Something memorable has occurred there. Not necessarily a glorious, heroic deed, a moment of history, but an act of spirit (pardon my grandiloquence!)

The Trip - Punctum & Studium

Studium (…) qui ne veut pas dire, du moins tout de suite, mais l'application à une chose, le goût pour quelqu'un, une sorte d'investissement general, empresseé, certes, mais sans acuité particulière. C'est pas studium que je m'intéresse

Non-Chronological Travel Notes (September 1979 - March 1980)

excerpts30th September When I get on the tram, in Zurich, I cross myself. To whom? Not to the tram, of course, but to the Power that gave some people (engineers, technicians, workers) the ability to create such public means of transportation: and to others (the passengers)

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Relying on analogies, the memoirist sometimes builds his 'account' on an allegoric construct. The major allegoric theme of such itineraries, suffused with metaphors and symbols (ranging from the proud verticality of the mountain to the protean horizontality of

Romantic Travel Narratives

excerptFor various reasons, travel became a fashionable experience at the beginning of the 19th century all over the Europe. Even Spain, originally a destination country for foreign travelers, mainly from Britain, is invaded by the mania de viajar; the Spanish playwright