We recommend reading this beautiful and big book about 60 years of travel around the world. The east, near and far, constituting the main destinations of the book. This blog article offers short excerpts and some pictures. Book's extract : "The coming of the great age gives us the privilege to contemplate our own life with the necessary distance to better understand it".
"Voyage en quête de lumière" by Roland et Sabrina Michaud at éditions de la Martinière
Roland Michaud of Auvergne origin met and then married Sabrina, Moroccan of Sephardic origin in 1958. After years of discovery towards the East, from Turkey to China, "passing" at length by Iran and the 'Afghanistan, India etc ...
The beautifully written work delivers beautiful and numerous photos in chronological and geographical order from West to East. No worry, here, right to the image of the people as is the case today, at least in the West. Very beautiful portraits dot the book, especially at the end opposite old paintings. The photographs, visibly realized in silver slide have a typical grain of this photographic support. Numerous double pages full size decorate the work.
The authors are not travelers of tour operators but rather take the time to visit, discover the countries frequented over long periods.
The discovery of Turkey and Istanbul, for example, begins with these words so just:
"Byzantium, Constantinople, Istanbul: three names for the same city, no other. On two continents, Europe and Asia, between two seas, the Marmara and the Black Sea, at the crossroads of two worlds, the east and the west, this mythical city, alternately Christian or Muslim, offers to the traveler his unique profile, in a site of rare magnificence: city of cities, city world, too old to die since it persists in vibrating the most intense life."
It is impossible to make an exhaustive inventory of the more than 400 pages of this book as the number of countries visited and the topics addressed are numerous. This account of voyages is not for all that a catalog of destinations but can also be akin to a kind of autobiography of the Roland and Sabrina Michaud life that one sees nicely to age, not to say flourish, over the images representing them.
Extracted from a magnificent letter written by their son Romain (then 29 years old) to his father on a trip to Montgolie:
"Very dear father,
I want to say venerable. Not because of your white beard but because of the respect you inspire ... Because your story of eagles and wolves makes me drool with envy ... .Because I bow before your stubbornness ... Because that I see you shrink but not in the wrong way, not you are becoming one of those old but trotting old trotting ... May you live a hundred more years, and continue writing poems that speak of Wall and dust ... May you find in the love and warmth of a son those few degrees which you must cruelly miss you ... "
Roland and Sabrina Michaud, with an open mind, a sharp sense of observation and real talents of photographer but also of writing offers us a superb work to discover, to leaf and to read with attention, by taking his time ...
Thanks to the Briançon library for allowing us to discover this book. The book on the website of the fine editor La Martinière and finally Roland and Sabrina on social networks.