Travelling along borders. Erika Fatland interviewed for NuBE – Nuova Biblioteca Europea

Abstract

Erika Fatland (1983) is a Norwegian writer and anthropologist specialised in foreign politics and particularly interested in Russia and the post-soviet Europe. The great success of her prize winning travel book Sovietistan (2014; eng. Sovietistan, MacLehose Press 2019; it. Sovietistan, Marsilio 2017, trasl. by Eva Kampmann) has been confirmed by the following Grensen. En reise rundt Russland gjennom Nord-Korea, Kina, Mongolia, Kasakhstan, Aserbajdsjan, Georgia, Ukraina, Hviterussland, Litauen, Polen, Latvia, Estkand, Finland og Norge samt Nordøstpassasjen (2017; eng. The Border. A Journey around Russia: Through North Korea, China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, Norway and the Northeast Passage, MacLehose Press 2020; it. La frontiera. Viaggio intorno alla Russia, Marsilio 2019, transl. by Sara Culeddu, Elena Putignano, Alessandra Scali). Grensen is a fabulous report about the author’s journey along the longest border on earth, the Russian one, 60.932 km from North Korea to Norway. Her latest work is called Høyt. En reise i Himalaya (High up. A Journey in the Himalaya), it has been published in Norway in October 2020, and it is expected in Italy in 2021. The following conversation with the author is about the border both as a philosophical concept and as a concrete place.