Hugo Loetscher first travelled to Brazil in 1965. Thus began a love that never let the cosmopolitan Swiss writer out of its grip. Hugo Loetscher returned again and again, writing travelogues about Brazil for various newspapers, as well as the novel Wonder World. Eventually, he went beyond the seductions of the exotic to explore the contradictions of the land of his desires. A timelessly contemporary portrait of a country which, in Hugo Loetscher’s words, is still »condemned to the future«. »Brazil was also a form of travelling in my consciousness. The adventure. The fascination of the unfamiliar. The lure of the unknown. But then, behind all the exotic and the tropical, the discovery of the country’s social reality. The encounter with another world that has more to do with ours than we are generally willing to accept.« Hugo Loetscher

Hugo Loetscher’s best travel essays and reports, many in book format for the first time.

Hugo Loetscher was a writer who »wanted to experience the world that was conveyed to him.« From Switzerland, he embarked in all directions of the compass, often on commission for newspapers and magazines, writing knowledgeable, witty, sparkling essays and reports. Loetscher’s eye for the simultaneities and hybrid forms of a globalised world is profoundly modern; his style always original and surprising. This volume is a wonderful springboard for discovering – or rediscovering – one of Switzerland’s greatest authors and journalists.

Including photographs by René Burri, Tobias Hitsch, Willy Spiller and Daniel Schwartz as well as unpublished photos by Hugo Loetscher himself.