Why set out? From Mongolia to Albania, travel as a way of life.
Cédric Gras is one of those writer-travellers who is always setting out for somewhere. Here he describes some of his tribulations, from Tibet to Albania via the whole of Eurasia. Lonely heights standing in for the ends of the earth, unexpected encounters, getting to grips with a language, every aspect of his receptivity to unfamiliar places.
The “travelling seasons” are spring and autumn, but also seasons that will never be experienced again: he describes them without nostalgia, but is well aware that the places and their inhabitants have changed. Time has accelerated on what feels like a shrinking planet, one altered by progress, politics and demographics. Travel in the Twenty-First Century is not what it once was.
Born in 1982, Cédric Gras studied geography the world over. As a lover of the great Eurasian expanses, he travelled extensively in the former Soviet Union over a ten-year period. He has also been director of the Alliance française in several countries. He has had two previous books published by Stock: L’hiver aux trousses (2015) and Anthracite (2016).
Du Tibet à l’Albanie, du Pakistan à la Mongolie et à travers toute l’Eurasie, Cédric Gras interroge le voyage. Rite de passage pour la jeunesse occidentale dont il faisait partie. Âge d’or de l’exploration d’un monde qui l’a fait rêver, mais que sa génération a trouvé transfiguré. Le voyage est aussi synonyme d’aventure, de poésie, de solitude ou de l’étude d’une langue. Comment redécouvrir la Terre au xxie siècle ?