L'usage du monde

In the summer of 1953, a 24 year old boy, son of a good Calvinist family, left Geneva and his university, where he took courses in Sanskrit, medieval history and then law, aboard his Fiat Topolino. Nicolas Bouvier had already made short trips or longer stays in Burgundy, Finland, Algeria, Spain, and then Yugoslavia, via Italy and Greece. This time, he aimed further: Turkey, Iran, Kabul and then the border with India. He was accompanied by his friend Thierry Vernet, who would document the expedition in drawings and sketches. These six months of travel through the Balkans, Anatolia, Iran and Afghanistan would give birth to one of the great masterpieces of the so-called "travel" literature, L'Usage du monde, which would only be published ten years later – and on account of author the first time – before becoming a classic. By his tight writing, cost-effective and not playing in "literature", Nicolas Bouvier managed to achieve this at least ten years later.