Sylvia Brownrigg: Invisible Countries (Cahiers Series no. 30)

Sylvia Brownrigg is the author of seven books of fiction including Pages for Her, published earlier this year by Picador (UK), and is a regular reviewer for the NY Times, the Guardian, and the TLS. A former teacher of Creative Writing at AUP, she will read from and discuss Invisible Countries, no.30 in the Cahiers Series edited by AUP’s Center for Writers & Translators. In this, a woman travels to seven ‘invisible’ countries, and from the moment of arrival is surprised, challenged, disturbed by what she discovers. In the brightly colored and somewhat sinister world that emerges, what is standard – passing through customs, checking in to a hotel, pronouncing words in a foreign language – becomes challenging, fraught; the traveler’s urge to escape and seek adventure vies with her sense of melancholy and anxiety at feeling unmoored. Brownrigg explores border-crossing, cultural misunderstanding, touristic voyeurism and naivety, as her visitor attempts to navigate the environments she encounters.