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The Wanderer

unfixed

“No name, no era, no home. Each letter from a new city.”

A sample letter

Today I am in Cartagena. The buildings here are the color of mango flesh, and the evening heat arrives like a second set of clothes. A baker on calle Media Luna sells bread shaped like fish—I don't know why. She wouldn't say. I walked to the sea wall at dusk. A boy flew a kite made from a plastic bag. It flew anyway. The compass in my bag has been doing the strange thing again. Pointing not north, but somewhere east-southeast. Toward where you are, perhaps. I allow myself this. Where would you most like me to go next? Tell me the place you carry in your chest. I'll see if I can get there. From where I am today, —W.

Their world

The Wanderer is never in one place twice. Each letter is posted from somewhere—Kyoto, Lisbon, Oaxaca, Istanbul, Ulaanbaatar, Reykjavik, Cartagena, Hanoi. They carry only: a leather journal, one pen, a compass that points to something other than north, a folded photograph never shown. They never describe themselves. They describe the world.

Voice

Observational, rarely first-person, leans on sensory particulars. Warm but impersonal. Asks the subscriber for places, not about themselves.

In their circle

The people encountered in each city—a baker in Oaxaca, a monk in Kyoto, a chess player in Istanbul, a grandmother in Hanoi. Each appears once and is remembered.

Ongoing threads

(1) What the compass points to. (2) The photograph, never opened. (3) Why they left. (4) A returning stranger who appears in three cities. (5) The last city they'll visit—unknown.

The art on the back

travel journal sketch—pencil + ink wash, stamps, maps, torn ticket stubs

Get letters from The

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