« Was I really about to trudge through this almost mythical territory? »: Traversée des frontières et devenir-autre dans A Time of Gifts de Patrick Leigh Fermor

Experienced as a rite of passage, the crossing of boundaries and the process of becoming-other are central features in A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor (1977). Depicting a journey undertaken across Central Europe in 1933-34, Leigh Fermor’s travelogue recreates imaginative geographies of proxi...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Béatrice Blanchet
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Université Clermont Auvergne 2023-06-01
Series:Viatica
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Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/viatica/2903
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Summary:Experienced as a rite of passage, the crossing of boundaries and the process of becoming-other are central features in A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor (1977). Depicting a journey undertaken across Central Europe in 1933-34, Leigh Fermor’s travelogue recreates imaginative geographies of proximity and distance, identity and otherness. Foreign territories are initially experienced and narrated through the dominating prism of the English language, revealing an enduring imperial gaze. But the reflective practices entailed by pedestrianism and hospitality also contribute to the blurring of boundaries between home and away. A Time of Gifts is therefore punctuated by the crossing of multiple thresholds that delineate a poetics of space inextricably bound up with borderlands, confines and margins.
ISSN:2275-0827