Cities & Countries

by Roman Payne

"'Cities & Countries' is a book about travel, about searching and wandering, about finding greatness in the midst of the world." Strange adventures meet Alexis when he wanders far from his familiar home in a quest to become a man of the world. What begins as a search for the "Great City," leads to a wayward and whimsical, romantically poignant, and at times powerfully despairing, jaunt through various cities and countries, far and wide. Along the way, he meets soldiers and hunchbacks, criminals and revolutionaries, madmen and fishermen, goatherds and opium smokers, charlatans, fanatical holy men and beautiful noblemen's daughters. He encounters glory, suffers poverty and loss. Friends and lovers come and go, while youth gives way to wisdom and experience. Payne speaks to us in his unique timeless tone, mixing mythology, realism and allegory to create a stage for an extraordinary drama that blends comedy, tragedy, gritty prose and magical poetry in an exploration of joy and sorrow, hope and despair.

Genres: Travel

324 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Roman Payne (b. 1977) is a novelist and poet currently living in political exile in Africa, in the kingdom of Morocco. Payne coined the famous word “wanderess” and is the author of five novels including, “The Wanderess”; which, since its publication in 2013, has influenced art and cultures all over the world. In the East, the famous Bollywood designer Masaba Gupta used Payne’s novel as the inspiration for her “Wanderess” collection which opened India’s Fashion Week in 2015. In the West, “The Wanderess” has been the inspiration for everything from art, to European films, to pop music in America. The pop star Halsey, who sold-out Madison Square Garden with songs like “Hurricane”—a song based on a quote from Payne’s novel—credits “The Wanderess” as one of her greatest inspirations while writing “Badlands,” the debut album that launched her to fame. Halsey chose this Roman Payne quote for her song:

“She was free in her wildness. She was a wanderess, a drop of free water. She belonged to no man and to no city.”

And the following quote by Roman Payne became one of the mantras of billionaire Richard Branson, who named it one of his “top ten favorite quotes about finding happiness”:

“You must give everything to make your life as beautiful as the dreams that dance in your imagination.”

Although Payne’s greatest artistic achievements are his novels, he is better known to the world as a poet. Countless works of art have been based on his poems and quotes. The author said that one of the things he loves most about being a novelist/poet is the numerous photos sent to him from people around the world who have tattooed his poetry on their bodies.

Payne is a controversial figure in that he is currently exiled in Muslim Morocco where he is forbidden to leave kingdom until he is tried for treason by the king (Mohammed VI). Both the US Congress and State Department have failed so far in obtaining the novelist’s release from Morocco. Payne is spending his days of exile in the souks of the ancient Medina of Marrakech.

Roman Payne is known as an adventurer, and the foremost “novelist on wandering.” His novels and poems are the favorites of other wanderers and world travelers.

The forty year-old author spent the first half of his life in America (mostly in Seattle where he was born and raised), while he spent his second 20 years wandering Europe and Africa. He first expatriated to Paris where he lived for fifteen years in the neighborhood of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. The next three years were spent in Athens, Greece; mainland Spain and the Canary Islands. Payne moved to Marrakech in February of 2016 and is currently finishing his sixth novel based on his life there.

Although Payne writes in English, his 15 years living in Paris where he spoke entirely in French, has greatly influenced his work, giving it a unique Latinate quality and inimitable voice. The themes of his quotes and prose explore love and sexuality, travel and the life of a wanderer (or wanderess), and the struggle to live, what he calls, “the poetic life.” He is heavily influenced by Homeric Epic, as well as 18th and 19th Century French and European literature.

Payne is a beloved writer by feminists and women in general because his writing reminds w that they too, like men, only have one life to live as far as we know, thus they too deserve to experience every single adventure that life can offer them. He receives a lot of letters from women writing that they found the courage to wander to the world after reading such quotes by him:

“Never did the world make a queen of a girl who hides in houses and dreams without travelling.”

“I stumbled upon this book when I was a teenager and its words helped to shape my will to be unapologetic, to be unbound by the perimeters of a single place. To write a song like Hurricane. To be like, ‘The Wanderess’” (Pop star, Halsey)

Reviews

[Michael Fournier]

Cities & Countries' is a book about travel, about searching and wandering, about finding greatness in the midst of the world. Strange adventures meet Alexis when he wanders far from his familiar home in a quest to become a man of the world. What begins as a search for the "Great City," leads to a wayward and whimsical, romantically poignant, and at times powerfully despairing, jaunt through various cities and countries, far and wide. Along the way, he meets soldiers and hunchbacks, criminals and revolutionaries, madmen and fishermen, goatherds and opium smokers, charlatans, fanatical holy men and beautiful noblemen's daughters. He encounters glory, suffers poverty and loss. Friends and lovers come and go, while youth gives way to wisdom and experience. Payne speaks to us in his unique timeless tone, mixing mythology, realism and allegory to create a stage for an extraordinary drama that blends comedy, tragedy, gritty prose and magical poetry in an exploration of joy and sorrow, hope and despair.

[Susan Zale · Rating 1 out of 5]

After three attempts, I finally gave up on this book 3/4 through. I found the protagonist hard to empathize with. I found the grammar and syntax errors rampant and distracting.