Why a Booktrail?
Where are the borders in your country, your life?
Border State
What you need to know before your trail
A novel of a life lived on the margins of Europe where East and West uneasily meet. At home in neither his native land nor his adopted country, the narrator writes from a fictional border state that transcends national boundaries.
Locations
Reset- France - Paris
- A: Montsouris Park
- B: Orangerie Museum
- C: Gare du Nord
- D: Rue de Rivoli
- Estonia
- E: Tartu University
Travel Guide
Paris via Estonia
Border State” is a series of letters the narrator, a gay translator from an unnamed Eastern-European nation, writes to someone called Angelo.
He now lives in Paris but Estonia is still with him and it’s this comparison and flux which propels him to try and find a sense of balance and peace.
It is the account of a man in the grip of Western excess.
“All countries have become imaginary deserts of ruins where crowds of nomads roam from one attraction to the other.”
“I once saw the words “border state” in a newspaper. That was how they labeled the country from which I came. It was a political term. Very appropriate, by the way. A border state is nonexistent. There is something on one side and something on the other side of the border, but there is no border. There is a highway, and a field of gratin with a farmhouse under tall, thirsty trees, but where is the border between them? It’s invisible. And if you should happen to stand on the border, then you too are invisible, from either side.”
Booktrail Boarding Pass: Border State
Destination : Paris, Estonia, The Baltic Countries Author/Guide: Tonu Onnepalu Departure Time: Timeless
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