Walks around the World

I have loved these pieces by several authors who have written about their favourite walks as a collaboration between Orion and the online magazine for international literature, Words without Borders. The writers are  Tomas Espedal, Manik Datar, Homero Aridjis, Sa?t Fa?k Abasiyanik, and Yuri Rytkheu (Published in the September/October 2009 issue of Orion magazine)

EVERY WALK—whether urban or rural, real or imagined—features the movement of one or more persons on foot through a particular place and some manner of dialogue that unfolds either between characters or in the narrator’s own head. Beyond that, anything can happen. From an editorial perspective, the walk is a universal narrative device for exploring a diverse sampling of cultures and places, ideas and environments. Which is why Orion teamed up with Words without Borders to jointly commission and collaterally publish a collection of short pieces, each written in a language other than English and translated, about a walk taken, remembered, or invented. Five of these pieces appear here, in the pages of Orion. To read the balance of the selections, readers are directed to the September issue of Words without Borders, which can be found at wordswithoutborders.org/internationalwalks.

“Go,” by Tomas Espedal, translated from the Norwegian by James Anderson

“First Solo Walk,” by Manik Datar, translated from the Marathi by the author

“The Ascent of Butterfly Mountain,” by Homero Aridjis, translated from the Spanish by Betty Ferber

“Hisht, Hisht!…” by Sait Faik Abas?yan?k, translated from the Turkish by Ufuk Özda?

“The Safekeeping of Names,” by Yuri Rytkheu, translated from the Russian by Ilona Yazhbin Chavasse

Illustration above right: Lucia Mooney-Martin

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