尼古拉·布維耶，他首先是個作傢，然後纔是日內瓦人、詩人、攝影師⋯⋯十六歲時，努力“為學習寫作而講述旅行經曆”的尼古拉·布維耶就很清楚，他想要遊曆整個世界，去發現生活的藝術。他踏上瞭去東方的路，先是和朋友維爾奈開車從日內瓦前往印度，然後又一個人去瞭日本。當他為瞭結婚迴到日內瓦時，行囊裏已經裝滿瞭素材，這些素材成就瞭他的三本經典的旅行文學之作：《世界之道》《日本筆記》（Chronique Japonaise） 和《蠍魚》（LePoisson-Scorpion ）。

In 1953, twenty-four-year old Nicolas Bouvier and his artist friend Thierry Vernet set out to make their way overland from their native Geneva to the Khyber Pass. They had a rattletrap Fiat and a little money, but above all they were equipped with the certainty that by hook or by crook they would reach their destination, and that there would be unanticipated adventures, curious companionship, and sudden illumination along the way. The Way of the World , which Bouvier fashioned over the course of many years from his journals, is an entrancing story of adventure, an extraordinary work of art, and a voyage of self-discovery on the order of Robert M. Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. As Bouvier writes, “You think you are making a trip, but soon it is making—or unmaking—you.”