Travel Quests
On the road in the former Yugoslavia with a couple of Americans: one recreating his trip from 1984, the other looking for cheese.
Podcast
Balkan Travel Writers
The vast majority of travel writing about the Balkans is by Western authors; travel writing about the Balkans. What’s much less known is travel writing literature authored by people from the Balkans, including the former Yugoslavia. In fact, Balkan (and ex-YU) writers have been traveling and living to tell the tales for some 150 years now. What’s all this travel writing from the Balkans about? Who are these Balkan travel writers, where do they travel, and what do they have to say about it?
Podcast
Black Lamb and Grey Falcon at 80
Eighty years since its publication, Rebecca West’s Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia remains the most authoritative (and longest) book of travel writing on that former country. The book has been described as “astonishing,” “brilliant,” “remarkable,” “a supreme literary monument,” and “one of the most important books written about Europe in the last century.” It has also been derided as biased, fictional, and factually flawed. What makes the book relevant a lifetime later?
Podcast
Travel Writing About Ex-Yugoslavia (Podcast Ep. 22)
Travel writing about ex-Yugoslavia exploded in the 1990s as the country disintegrated in violence. The lessons the author of the first such account, Brian Hall, learned when he traveled through then-Yugoslavia in 1991 resonate today more than ever.
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Podcast
Balkan Travel Spies (Podcast Episode 14)
Foreign-born, Belgrade-based tour operators, Ralph van der Zijden, from the Netherlands (iBike Belgrade & Yugotour), and Tiago Carruco, from Portugal (Into the Balkans), share the stories of their respective businesses and how the covid pandemic has affected them.