The Hopeful Traveller

Janina David

From Shelf: Books published w/c 20th September 2021

Bitter-sweet stories about cosmopolitan, self-confident women in an era just before the birth of feminism, conventional in their expectations of men, their pasts behind them but still looking for their anchor in the present, always just a step away from displacement and alienation.

WRY TALES FROM ENVELOPEBOOKS

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 Dusseldorf 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. Some of these stories have appeared in translation in overseas annuals and collections.