Fiction about non-UK or USA people doing leisure travel
August 30, 2016 2:36 AM Subscribe
Looking for suggestions of novels or short stories, in English, that have leisure travel as a central feature (that is holidays not emigration, relocation for study, etc.) - where the travellers are not from either the UK or the USA. No restrictions on time period, but after realism rather than fantasy travel. Any ideas?
Response by poster: uuuuh can I add a rider: not sex-tourism or 'aren't local girls fun' works.
posted by AFII at 6:20 AM on August 30, 2016
posted by AFII at 6:20 AM on August 30, 2016
Significant parts of Stegner's Crossing to Safety take place on vacations.
posted by Jahaza at 6:22 AM on August 30, 2016
posted by Jahaza at 6:22 AM on August 30, 2016
Only originally in English, or available in English translation?
If the latter: Much of Proust's Within a Budding Grove is about the narrator's seaside vacation in the imaginary resort of Balbec. A later volume--I want to say it's The Fugitive but I could be mistaken--features a trip by the narrator to Venice. Of course, the German protagonist of Death in Venice is also on vacation in Venice.
posted by praemunire at 8:32 AM on August 30, 2016 [1 favorite]
If the latter: Much of Proust's Within a Budding Grove is about the narrator's seaside vacation in the imaginary resort of Balbec. A later volume--I want to say it's The Fugitive but I could be mistaken--features a trip by the narrator to Venice. Of course, the German protagonist of Death in Venice is also on vacation in Venice.
posted by praemunire at 8:32 AM on August 30, 2016 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Translation is fine! But I do want non-UK or USA travellers (which I think rules Crossing to Safety right out).
Death in Venice is the only example I thought of for myself...it does seem a bit tricky as a genre.
posted by AFII at 8:47 AM on August 30, 2016
Death in Venice is the only example I thought of for myself...it does seem a bit tricky as a genre.
posted by AFII at 8:47 AM on August 30, 2016
Tove Jansson has a few short stories about this in the collections Travelling Light and Fair Play. They include a lesbian Finnish couple travelling through rural Southern USA.
posted by mymbleth at 8:59 AM on August 30, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by mymbleth at 8:59 AM on August 30, 2016 [1 favorite]
The Magic Mountain also begins as a vacation for its (German) protagonist, turns into something else.
Kitty (Russian) goes to a resort in an episode of Anna Karenina.
posted by praemunire at 9:22 AM on August 30, 2016 [1 favorite]
Kitty (Russian) goes to a resort in an episode of Anna Karenina.
posted by praemunire at 9:22 AM on August 30, 2016 [1 favorite]
Another possibility:
Deep Blue Night, by Choi In-ho (translated from the Korean). I haven't read it, but it is about two Korean men on a road trip in America. One source describes it as 'a combination of a travelogue and that most quintessential American literary form, the buddy road-trip.'
posted by Panthalassa at 6:23 PM on August 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
Deep Blue Night, by Choi In-ho (translated from the Korean). I haven't read it, but it is about two Korean men on a road trip in America. One source describes it as 'a combination of a travelogue and that most quintessential American literary form, the buddy road-trip.'
posted by Panthalassa at 6:23 PM on August 30, 2016 [2 favorites]
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posted by Panthalassa at 3:41 AM on August 30, 2016 [1 favorite]