L’usage du monde, Nicolas Bouvier
dessins de Thierry Vernet

In the summer of 1953, a 24-year-old son of a good Calvinist family leaves Geneva and his university in his Fiat Topolino. Nicolas Bouvier had already made short and longer trips across Europe. This time, his sights are set further afield: Turkey, Iran, Kabul and the border with India. He is accompanied by his friend Thierry Vernet, who will document the expedition in drawings and sketches. His six-month journey through the Balkans, Anatolia, Iran and Afghanistan gave rise to one of the great masterpieces of "travel" literature, L'Usage du monde, which was not published until ten years later, before becoming a classic.

Nicolas Bouvier's sparing writing style, which does not play at "literature", has achieved what few have: a pure travelogue, in the great tradition of discovery and wonder, coupled with a reflection on a way of being in the world among his contemporaries, at all latitudes.

La Découverte, 2015
Text in French
Soft cover
18 x 24 cm
384 pages
0.7 kg
ISBN : 9782707188144