It seems to be a wonderful perspective: travelling and writing about it.

Lieve Joris turned it into her profession. But it was not easy to reach the place where she has arrived now. She takes us back to that one room in Cairo when she tried to study the Arabic language. She studied the language with the hope that she could see the revelation of a new world.

A revelation for that girl from Flanders that travelled into the big world. She moved back to Flanders, to her roots, to her grandmother, the well-known streets and her primary school surrounded by high walls. Later on she moved to The Netherlands.

But where was she at home? 

Where did she understand the people when whom she lived? 

Sitting and studying and reflecting in that small room in Cairo she understood how difficult, maybe even impossible, it is to understand people from a different culture. It is hard to realise that you will stay an outsider, whereever you travel, no matter how long you stay, no matter how hard you try to learn the local language. You get impressions, fleeting impressions and you move on with your suitcase.

Lieve Jores makes notes and reflects, she learns from the great writers in her field like V.S. Naipaul and Ryszard Kapuscinski.

And already for many years it results in many beautiful books.  

Lieve Joris – Een kamer in Cairo – Amsterdam 1991 –  56 pages