The Hopeful Traveller

Janina David

Summary

In France, Mattie feels twenty again. In Poland, Magda revisits her impoverished family. In Uzbekistan, Diana lets a fellow tourist kiss her. In Germany, Lynn loses her luggage on the Düsseldorf train. The Hopeful Traveller is a collection of short stories about—and told by—single women who have put the past behind them but are still looking for their anchor in the present. The stories include bitter-sweet accounts of the freedoms of postwar life, foreign travel, the rekindling of old friendships and the search for new ones. They speak of cosmopolitan, self-confident, well-heeled characters, in an era just before the birth of feminism, conventional in their expectations of men, always just a step away from displacement and alienation. Set variously in Paris, Kalisz, Samarkand, Hong Kong, Melbourne, Erfurt, Singapore and London, these stories, from a much-admired veteran writer, offer a teasing mix of realism and fantasy, wish-fulfilment and regret.

Available since: 06/05/2024.

Print length: 232 pages.

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