Daniel Kalder is
the author of two of my favorite books of the 21st Century: Lost
Cosmonaut: Observations of an Anti-Tourist and Strange
Telescopes: Following the Apocalypse from Moscow to Siberia. His
newest book, The
Infernal Library: On Dictators, the Books They Wrote, and Other Catastrophes of
Literacy, will be released on March 6, 2018.
In our Q&A, Daniel discusses some of his experiences as
an anti-tourist, i.e. one whose duty is to “open up new zones of
experience. In our over-explored world these must of necessity be wastelands,
black holes, and grim urban blackspots: all the places which, ordinarily,
people choose to avoid.“
—MC
Q1: Which foreign land that you've visited so far was the most
impenetrable in your travels -- the one that had the most barriers to entry
e.g. physical distance, bureaucracy, cost, etc. ?