French Literature Reviews - 2026

The Need for Elsewhere
Philosophy, Anthropology and Ideas

In 2021, Lucie Azema published Les femmes aussi sont du voyage. L'émancipation par le départ with Flammarion, a book that challenged the traditional male-centric perspective on adventure and explored the tension between travel and motherhood. Now, with the same publisher, she releases Nous avons besoin d’un ailleurs qui n’existe pas: within geographers' studies and books, dreams were woven onto maps, populating them with imaginary islands and fantastical creatures; scholars and explorers sought the Garden of Eden; they traced the Nile upstream, believing paradise originated there; they plunged deep into the Amazon in search of El Dorado or the Lost City of Z. Lucie Azema explores the intimate ties between utopia and travel at a time when borders are rising and narrowing our horizons. To do so, she traces history from antiquity to the 1960s, following the hippie trail from Turkey to Kathmandu—an era when setting off for a real country was also, and perhaps above all, a journey toward a dreamed-of land.

(Illustration: Sur la route de Katmandu, directed in 1969 by André Cayatte, written in collaboration with René Barjavel, starring J. Birkin, Renaud Verley, and S. Gainsbourg)

The history of exploration has long been intertwined with the human desire to project ideals onto the physical world. From the cartographic traditions of antiquity to the mid-twentieth century, the act of traveling was frequently motivated by the search for mythical locations, such as the Garden of Eden or El Dorado. This intellectual tradition reflects a persistent tension between the reality of geographical discovery and the imaginative impulse to populate the unknown with utopian visions. By examining these historical narratives, the text explores how the concept of the elsewhere has functioned as a central pillar in the human experience of space.

The mid-twentieth century hippie trail represents a significant period in this trajectory, blending physical movement with the pursuit of a subjective, idealized destination. This era marked a transition where the act of traveling to a tangible country was simultaneously a journey toward a dreamed-of land, reflecting broader shifts in cultural attitudes toward borders and horizons. Readers interested in the intersection of geography, historical exploration, and the philosophy of travel may find this analysis of the relationship between utopia and the act of setting off relevant.