Bernard Ollivier

A Frenchman sets out to walk the Silk Road from Istanbul in Turkey through Iran and eventually to China. Many wonderful generous people who share their homes, their food and their tea with him, but also a nasty tiny minority who try to rob him of the little he has in his back pack. He also describes Turkey in the countryside as an ignorant peasant society that keeps its women uneducated and profoundly subservient. On nearing the border with Iran he travels through Kurdish Turkey, and finds them severely oppressed and even more oppressive of their own women. He is finally felled by q horrific bout of amoebic dysentry and has to return to France.… (mer)

This would be a 5-star book if I didn’t find it so depressing; it left me in a slump for months. So it gets 4-stars. I love this trilogy (this is book 2) about the author’s walking the Silk Road. I feel like I’ve learned so much about each country thanks to the people he meets and the sights he sees, and the gosh awful way he’s treated by corrupt police or religious radicals—at 1 point I just couldn’t take it anymore—I had to tell myself, “He survived to write the trilogy!” I look forward to reading the last book, hopeful that he’s treated far better than in the first two legs of his journey.… (mer)

> Un jour, Bernard Ollivier a sauté le pas, est parti affronter "le dernier fleuve sauvage français".
—L'Express

> Aventures en Loire, par Bernard Ollivier, Par Marianne PAYOT, publié le 05/07/2012 à 11:00. — L'homme, qui avait enchanté tout le petit peuple des amoureux de l'Orient avec le récit de sa rel="nofollow" target="_top">Longue Marche (12 000 kilomètres sur la route de la soie), a repris son bâton de pèlerin. Destination ? La Loire, pas moins exotique, finalement. La suggestion lui a été faite il y a des années par son collègue du Matin de Paris de l'époque, Jean-Paul Kauffmann. "Prenant sans cesse des déguisements, la Loire-torrent, la Loire-châteaux, la Loire-usines, la Loire nucléaire, la Loire-Atlantique se rappelait de temps en temps à mon souvenir…" Puis, un jour, Bernard Ollivier a sauté le pas, est parti affronter "le dernier fleuve sauvage français". 1 000 kilomètres du mont Gerbier-de-Jonc à Nantes. Une belle épopée pour le fondateur de Seuil, association d'aide aux jeunes délinquants par la marche.
—L'Express… (mer)