Another way to rediscover what the maps show – 03/15/2023 – Zeca Camargo

There is a moment in the lives of certain travellers, more or less after the third or fourth trip around the world, when the question arises: and now, where am I going? All we have for now is this strange blue celestial body, but if I already know almost everything about it, where do I go?

Erika Fatland has a good answer to this dilemma: try to see these borders in another way, say, besides maps. Or yet, she suggests with her books, look closely at the maps… and think of a way to rediscover what they show you.

“A Fronteira” (Editora Âyiné) is Erika’s second book released in Brazil. I’ve been a fan of hers since I read “Sovietistan”, released by the same publisher in 2021, when I had the chance to chat with her, virtually, because those were the times.

Earlier this month, during a quick stopover in São Paulo, I had the chance to talk to her at a book signing at the Megafauna bookstore. Erika didn’t come to Brazil specifically for this event (more on her mission here in a moment), but I made sure to find someone capable of inspiring me so much to review our wanderings around the world.

In her most recent work translated into Portuguese, Erika visits countries bordering Russia. This includes, of course, Norway, where she was born, the end point of this journey that started in North Korea.

Technically, it starts from the Bering Strait, the small strip of sea that separates Russia and the United States. There, she embarks on an inhospitable cruise for travelers who “have seen everything in the world”, some so old that the author doubts their physical capacity to face the inclement weather of the adventure.

Her experienced shipmates talk only about their geographical conquests, something that frightens and fascinates Erika, as well as nudging restless readers (yes, us) into more philosophical questions about why we always want to travel.

Erika doesn’t even know half the countries in the world, but it’s not difficult to identify in her the restlessness of someone who collects stamps in their passports or, in the more modern version, little flags on their Instagram profile. And it is with this insatiable curiosity that she defines her itineraries.

“The Frontier” —like “Sovietstan”, in which she visits the countries of the former Soviet Union— is fascinating not for the superficial exoticism of the scripts, but for the strength of the people Erika crosses paths with. Dodging the difficulties of a woman traveling alone to places that are sometimes hostile to this type of tourist, she finds wonderful human stories along the way.

The countries and cultures it presents come alive in our imagination not through the description of the landscapes (often incredible) or the monuments (often bizarre), but through the oral history of those who were born and raised in those places. And it never left.

Another book of his, still unpublished in Brazil, is called “Høyt”, something like “in the heights”, about the countries crossed by the Himalayas: Pakistan, India, Bhutan, Nepal and China. And, in her next project, which brought her to Brazil, she will write about the former Portuguese empire.

When I was with Erika I couldn’t resist the temptation to tell her that I had already done something similar when, in 1999, I visited all the countries where Portuguese is spoken (or once was spoken) for “Fantástico”.

Its focus passing through the same places I visited more than 20 years ago is different, but the “spirit of the trip” is the same: cutting out the Earth to prove whether the old and tired planet can still surprise us.

The possibilities, Erika and I concluded, are endless.

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