The Wanderer

The first English-language translation of an eccentric, unclassifiable classic

An unnamed narrator embarks on a rambling journey across the diverse borderlands of the Russian and Ottoman Empires – all without leaving his divan. Drawing on his own experiences in Bessarabia during the Russo-Turkish War of 1828-29, A. F. Veltman describes our Romantic narrator poring over a map and traversing distant, contested regions – at once imperial backwaters and cosmopolitan crossroads – where Romanians, Ruthenians, Jews, Bulgarians, Germans, and Turks comingle. Meandering and motley in form and language, this lost classic of the early nineteenth century deploys metafictional innovations that anticipate postmodernist literature. The novel is speckled with dictionary entries, multiplication tables, philosophical digressions, and love poetry as Veltman swings from Gothic horror to antiquarian commentary to burlesque comedy. Past, present, and fantasy blend together, as Alexander the Great, Ovid, and Augustus join the narrator on his daydreamed journey of self-discovery. Hugely popular in its day, The Wanderer is a remarkable tale that depicts the extraordinary places and peoples that met along the fault lines of once-great empires.

Author Biography

Alexander Fomich Veltman (1800 – 1870) was a popular and influential writer in his own time whose experimental works range from prose to poetry and realism to fantasy, including time-travel fiction. He was a friend of Pushkin, and his novels were praised by both Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. His Selected Stories are also published by Northwestern University Press.

Stephen A. Bruce is an associate professor of Russian translation at the Defense Language Institute.