If atlases led a young Nicolas Bouvier to dream about traveling, it is traveling which leads him to pick up a pen and start writing. At twenty-four years old, before leaving for Asia, he visits Ella Maillart (1903-1997), his elder and fellow Genevan, emeritus traveller of the Celestial Mounts. She was crossing the continent as early as in 1930 and published numerous articles and books, all illustrated by her. One of them is called La Voie cruelle.
In 1953, with painter Thierry Vernet, he leaves for a long journey in Fiat Topolino which will lead them to India's door. “We had two years ahead of us and money for four months”. His friend draws the comical and the roughness of the lands they cross. The young writer gives to see his way to be into the world among others. He also passionately records gypsy music and confesses: “I love words, but the space they cover is not the same as sounds. This space seems narrower to me”. The capture of sounds and writing both animate him. But his first pictures sometimes have clumsy framing.
After running aground in Ceylon, he bounces back in Japan in December of 1955 where he sells for the first time a story of his journey in Japanese. Le Journal de Genève publishes parts of the series under the titles: “Memories of a wood seller”, “The crescent and the cross”...
No editor is willing to accept his manuscript of L’Usage du monde. Determined, he self-publishes his initiatic experience in 1963. This existential quest, illustrated by Thierry Vernet’s inks, becomes a masterpiece for travel writing.
“Asia teaches you to disappear, it looks like writing” says Nicolas Bouvier, because, for him, we need to be invisible to describe the world as it is. Ella Maillart and him were witnesses of a world which has now disappeared.