Memoirs of a Venture Novelist: One Woman's Guide to Travel, Sex, and Culture (en Inglés)
Reseña del libro "Memoirs of a Venture Novelist: One Woman's Guide to Travel, Sex, and Culture (en Inglés)"
As I ride a rickety rusted blue bus that smells of petrol and cleaning chemicals across a highway three hours north of Bangkok trying to hold my pen steady enough to write, I can't help but reflect on my entire life's journey. It has not been an ordinary one. Drinking imported beer along the Seine in Paris, conducting research on war-related rape in Liberia, and dodging bullets at checkpoints in occupied Palestine. How did a girl from a trailer park in Michigan come to redefine her socio-economic status and attempt to take on the world's most corrupt powers? To understand how I went from a small-town girl to a conference speaker at the United Nations, I'd have to start from the beginning. I must forewarn you though; this is not another "Eat, Pray, Love" story. You will not find yourself reading the inner existential crisis of a mediocre western woman who traveled abroad to find herself because I didn't; and I guess that's the point. This story is not about love, although there has been love; a lot of it. It's not about second chances or some sort of self-healing rendition of a young woman, who, against all odds, made it out of rural poverty in Midwestern America. This story is more about reciprocity, adventure, globalization, and the interconnectedness of human existence and identity. Although I have traveled across vast continents, the last thing you would have ever expected is where I came from, where I am going, and how it all led to this. My story is about agency, self-determination, and the long journey of discovery in which I learn to find security in myself and patience for what could have been. This story is about making the connections between the abstract and the foreign from the perspective of a single woman. A woman pressured by patriarchy and global capitalism, unapologetic about her self-awareness, her tattoos, piercings, or her many acts of cultural rebellion. I've become my own superhero and potentially a heroine in the global effort for peace, justice, and equality. This is not a romantic comedy where I meet some amazing person who sweeps me off my feet. This is not a fairytale. I do not sugar coat my sexual exploits, the death and destruction I have seen working in conflict-torn countries or lie about who and what is responsible for our collective lack of morality. This is also not some humanitarian manifesto where I try to convince you to save the world or a jaded description of how utterly fucked we all are. It's a memoir of a young woman who, despite this chaotic world, found humanity in hidden places.
